Greater Roadrunner

When I found out I was going to have a couple of free days in Albuquerque I checked to see if there were any nearby wildlife refuges. It became apparent that the Rio Grande Nature Center State Park was the place to visit and one of the birds they mentioned as a regular is the Greater Roadrunner. How cool it that! It became my goal to get a picture of one.
On Friday, I spent about four hours at the park, but didn't see any Roadrunners. I was a bit disappointed as I was getting in my car to drive away, when there, right in front of my car, was a Roadrunner. Unfortunately it didn't stick around for very long and I only got one reasonable shot.
So I decided to give it one more try Sunday morning. This time I started around the parking lot and it paid off as I found a Roadrunner just outside the garden area. Though a bit weary of me, it didn't run off like the first one had and I was able to get many pictures of it. Mission accomplished.
The Roadrunner was an interesting bird. Of course, one wonders if it is anything like the caricature in the cartoon and actually there were some similarities. It runs around kinda like a chicken and has a call that is somewhat reminiscent of a "beep, beep". The thing that struck me the most though was its feet. It had large feet with thick toes very similar to the cartoon Roadrunner. And the toes were arranged with two toes forward and two toes in the rear.