Endothermy: Why Not Give It a Try!

Greater Roadrunners are some of the strangest birds around, and that’s really saying something in the land of Gambel’s Quail! While most birders’ mental image of a roadrunner is of a streak running down the road (duh), if you’re out early on a cool morning, this is the picture you’re likely to see: a great disheveled mass of streaky feathers and blackish down raised to the sun. Normally wily as a coyote, roadrunners are exceptionally approachable when they’re recharging their solar batteries of a morning, and this one let me get so close that for a panicked moment I worried that it had mistaken me for something edible.