Minor Frustrations Of My Life
Irradiated by LabRat
Things you expect to be easily searchable information and yet turn out to be impossible to access via search engine: roadrunner body language. We have a friendly neighborhood roadrunner that turns up in our front yard from time to time. Like most predatory birds he’s insouciantly confident, and he likes to come right up to the glass to have a good look in at us before he goes on his way. This time Kodos was hanging out watching the world go by on the other side of it, and the bird gave him a crest-ruffle and a big, exaggerated tail dip. I’m betting it’s an avian middle finger roughly equivalent to the mockingbird tail-waggle, but I don’t actually know for sure.
Because fucking everybody has named their company after roadrunners. Search for “roadrunner (adjective) display” and you get endless pages of results for things that have absolutely nothing to do with roadrunners. Same with just about any variant.
Off to find the birder websites and search through there…
December 21st, 2009 at 3:41 pm
I always go to Cornell first for bird info.
December 21st, 2009 at 3:50 pm
Beep beep….
December 21st, 2009 at 3:54 pm
What I usually do is put some bird seed on a plate, and then hoist an anvil over it.
December 21st, 2009 at 4:01 pm
I didn’t know about Cornell, but they didn’t have what I was after. After confining my searches to “greater roadrunner”, I’ve been able to learn plenty about roadrunner courting behavior and predator-luring behavior but nothing about their ethology in any other respect.
I guess it shows how accustomed I’ve gotten to having the internet just drop any information I might want into my lap.
December 21st, 2009 at 4:12 pm
Did you try looking for the scientific name (Geococcyx californianus) body language?
December 21st, 2009 at 4:17 pm
Yep. I got a lot of behind-subscriber-wall journal articles- on courtship and nesting behavior.
December 21st, 2009 at 4:26 pm
I did searches on Geococcyx californianus and Geococcyx velox, plus “behavior”. I think you’re going to have to dig up some research papers by specialists.
Or it could mean that there’s no Desmond Morris of roadrunners.
Next time you spot the bird, give it the finger and see what it does. (It’ll probably go home and google “human body language”, and get all ticked off because the results are just a bunch of websites selling self-help books.)
December 21st, 2009 at 4:44 pm
Sorry, too slow.
December 21st, 2009 at 6:20 pm
Great. Now I’m doing research. For free. In my spare time. Dammit.
December 21st, 2009 at 8:05 pm
Heh.
Among Jays and Robins, that tail flip means danger.
Your roadrunner may be displaying sarcasm.
December 21st, 2009 at 8:17 pm
I think the thing I miss most about my old job is unlimited access to academic journals…
Re: the roadrunner - my vote is on the middle finger. Clover the rooster performs the same kind of display for my dogs. Based on the way both parties react - it cannot mean anything other than “screw you”.
There’s a photo of the two of them on my library thing page taken [sigh] just after Clover flipped Audie off - tell me that dog didn’t just get majorly dissed…
December 22nd, 2009 at 12:06 am
Those little feathered suckers are getting positively arrogant lately.
My wife and I have been living in the mountains of AZ for going on five years. The first four, I saw about one roadrunner per year, and she saw one (total) in town.
Now, I’m seeing them pretty much every other day, and my wife saw one in the middle of town that stopped in front of her car, gave her the eyeball, mooned her and took off.
They’re badass little birds(they pick fights with rattlers and win!), and we like them. Beats the @$()*^ javelinas that keep frequenting our yard.
December 22nd, 2009 at 3:13 am
TJP.. you owe me a keyboard.
seeds….anvil. I went way back on that.
Labrat- Google ‘Acme’ . Your welcome.
December 22nd, 2009 at 10:08 am
You have a zebra chicken!
December 22nd, 2009 at 11:37 am
Hmmm … Kang and Kodos with anvils …
December 22nd, 2009 at 7:34 pm
Check the writings of Roy Bedichik (not certain of the spellin, and I lent out my copy of “Adventures with a Texas Naturalist some 20 years ago and no longer expect its return), as well as “paisano”, once a popular name for the bird.
December 22nd, 2009 at 8:36 pm
Wow. The one in the Indy Zoo’s “desert biome dome” would just sit on the highest point and glare. They finally had to outplace him — he was eating too many of his fellow exhibits and starting to pick fights with visitors. Clearly, they do better when they have some elbow room.
December 23rd, 2009 at 1:44 am
Roberta- roadrunners are predators, and at that predators much smarter than most of their compatriots. The only time they even interact with other roadrunners is to mate, and at that they tend to form long term to lifelong pairs.
That they don’t get on with an exhibit that includes a lot of prey and competitors is unsurprising.
December 23rd, 2009 at 4:03 pm
We had a roadrunner frequent our back yard for a while this summer and early fall. Mountain boomers are common here, and he had a knack for finding them. I was pleased he left, because mountain boomers eat bugs, and bugs need to be eaten.
He was the most alert bird I have ever seen. Other birds will eat what they stumble across, but he hunted. I was impressed.
December 28th, 2009 at 1:38 pm
I’m thinking the behavior is a reaction to his reflection. If so, then it’s territorial.