Greater Roadrunner – Life Intrigued

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Well, I thought I was prepared for the outcome of my MRI results. Truth is… I wasn’t. It wasn’t the revelation that my ankle was “not right”. That I was quite aware of based on what I’ve been dealing with since about 5:28am on October 12th last year (link here). Since then I’ve gone through a litany of issues – a major struggle being able to convince the medical community there were issues beyond their rosier assessments. I’ve covered that in the past, no need to rehash that. I finally got an orthopedic surgeon that understood my plight which has lifted my spirits tremendously, then he interpreted the findings in the MRI and my heart sank. The situation is bad, very bad. The tibia breaks have healed, but there is “missing” cartilage, tendon and ligament tears and spurs on the fibula from the trauma. That news was not the only proverbial kick in the groin. The treatment schedule was even more devastating. Surgery mid July, followed by 6 weeks NO WEIGHT, then 4 weeks of boot followed by 4 week of brace with heavy therapy involved in that last 2 months. Running done for the foreseeable future, 2025 racing season lost, impact on 2026 ultra levels concerning. My head was a mess playing those schedules out and I remember looking at Linda as we both came to the realization that our annual haunted trail party was in serious jeopardy. Three of my four passions were just pulled out from under me with one mighty pull. Linda and I are still running the timelines and getting prepared the best we can. The sickening thing is I could have been past all this had we started back in December.

I was scrolling through my queue for something to feature today and then the obvious choice came up.

Greater Roadrunner found at Spring Mountain Ranch State Park, Blue Diamond, NV in January 2024

Hit the jump to see more pictures of my early running icon.

A Greater Setback

I suppose you could say it is a fitting time for getting things “wrapped” up. All the excitement of seeing the festive colored boxes with their pretty bows bringing joy to kids and adults. The catalyst for this heartwarming affair, a jolly big-waisted fellow that shimmies down the chimney (or alternative burglary entry point into your homestead). Unfortunately, my coal colored gift this holiday year reflects some bad actions earlier in the year. To be exact, October 12th, one of those days that now takes its rightful place among my other noteworthy “mishaps”. The ankle specialist wasn’t wearing festive clothes yesterday, but he did take the time to wrap my gift in a shiny shade of black coal…ho, ho, ho, you are the proud recipient of a non-displaced double fracture! Grinch said WHAT!?!?! Now, in my joint’s defense I need to apologize for all the hurtful comments hurled at it since race-day. It was not faking it for sympathy, a stunt that it has pulled many times in the past – nope, it was damaged and now I am the proud receiver of a black boot that will loudly proclaim I’m damaged goods to anyone we come upon during the next 6 weeks. No running, of course, no long birding hikes (we’ll see) and beach time is likely right out. My Texas trip just took a mighty blow thanks in large part to the first orthopedic surgeon I went to in early November telling me it was nothing, take two aspirin and find your own way out of the office. Lost 4 weeks of recovery time and I’ve been doing chiro visits and physical therapy that was likely making it worse – shocked that it didn’t displace as a result of all the yanking and twisting. While I try to move on to the acceptance phase, decided it was an appropriate time to feature the totem animal for all runners.

Greater Roadrunner found at Saguaro National Park West, Tucson, AZ in January 2024

Hit the jump for some looks at a bird that probably has more running shoes in its closet than I do..and that is saying a LOT.

Meep Meep…by Brad Marks

Hello folks. As the Twain saying goes, “rumors of my demise are greatly exaggerated” (I know that was embellished by Paine, but I prefer this version ha). During these last two weeks I’ve joked that I was close to knocking on that heavenly door as we toiled away preparing for the annual Haunted Trail. The stress is off now as the event was held Friday and Saturday night. Still awaiting testimonials, but from the positive feedback we heard over the course of the two nights, I’d say we had a pretty successful haunt. What I can commit to without question is I’m officially exhausted from the stress, work and woeful lack of sleep it took to wrangle the chaos into shape before the guests started arriving. We owe a big thanks to everyone who jumped in to help including family (Ron/Derek), friends (including Brad/Jan) and pretty much all the Intrigued staff (except the lawyer dept that are still upset I took away their “butt copier”). Tomorrow back on the training program for the fast approaching ultra-race – now officially 7 pounds lighter). Struggling to keep my eyes open writing this intro, so I’m going to reacquaint myself with my pillow and let Brad take you on another adventure in one of our favorite cities.

Take it away Brad.. (oh, and big thanks to Brad for keeping Intrigued HQ running smoothly while I was out battling demons and clowns in the woods).

During one of our compressed mornings in Las Vegas, we had tough choices to make. Brian had assigned me three bird locations to visit. However, during day one of the trip, we lost over half a day trying to get a flat tire fixed. (See A New Low – link here) While scheming in the hotel room the night before, Jan and I decided to visit two big locations in the same day. Crazy, I know. What can you do? We had already planned many activities for after birding hours. Early one morning, we headed to Clark County Wetlands on the edge of Las Vegas.

As Jan and I were wandering through the Wetlands, we kept seeing opened Acme wooden crates everywhere. Even though Merlin couldn’t pick it up, I thought I could hear a “meep meep” sound followed quickly by little clouds of dust. Finally, as we were heading to one of the small ponds, we spotted this bird in the shadows, next to little anvil-shaped holes in the dust.

Hit the jump to read more about a certain Coyote’s nemesis!

GRiaT

We are finally back from our exploration part deux. For those that didn’t already figure it out based on the recent comments, we headed down to the shores of Alabama and the Florida Panhandle for some migration birding. Ron was able to join us down there making for a wonderful time. We managed to hit the fallout while at Dauphin Island and had the best birding of our lives. Ron and I are both in the +20s which means almost certain I’ll be hitting my 300 bird list goal by the end of the year .. assuming I can get those posts out by then. More on the trip when I get to those posts. For now, going with what was previously the most recent trip – Texas in January.

Greater Roadrunner found at Bentsen-Rio Grande Valley State Park in Mission, Texas in January 2021

So, to set the stage for this featured feathered friend, I need to weave in one of my fellow bloggers. Timothy over at Off Center & Not Even (link here) is an Owl aficionado, purveyor of sunsets , accomplished musician, clever poet, Bird tinner, Cat nurturer and owns a slick looking red car… to highlight just a few facets of things he covers on his entertaining blog.

Hit the jump to see more of this new behavior.

Totem Spirit

Greetings everyone. We recently made our way back from a week in Las Vegas which means the sleep counter for the month of November took a serious decrement. Not complaining, of course, seeing as how that was pretty much self-inflicted. From a birder’s perspective, Vegas is up there in the top 10 birding places we’ve ever had the pleasure of visiting. Actually, should clarify that a bit, the birding is primarily a combination of the Henderson Bird Viewing Preserve and the Red Rock Canyon National Conservation Area inside the Mojave Desert. We opted to rent some glass out there this time rather than hauling out the Beast. I wanted the prime Nikon 600 f/4 but the VR ended up being broken on that option, so settled for the 150-600 f5-6.3 Tamaron. I am here to say, Tamaron glass is NOT Nikon glass. Still need to go through the images, but it was a fight the entire time. That glass is way to light to hand hold in the wind and extremely slow to focus compared to my rig making it impossible to nail any in-flight shots. Did manage to get at least one +1 and possibly a couple more. More to come on that front. For now, was totally shocked when I came upon this set of pictures in the queue.

Greater Roadrunner found outside Laguna Atascos National Wildlife Refuge in January 2017

This is not the first time the Greater Roadrunner has appeared here at Intrigued, first appearing way back in May of 2013 (link here). That first encounter was at the Henderson Bird Viewing Preserve and took some effort to find. It also didn’t allow us to get too close it. Now this specimen was the Walmart greeter for Laguna Atascosa.National Wildlife Refuge. We were navigating the absolutely awful road (if you can call it that) that leads into that refuge when our little feathered friend popped out of the brushline.

Greater Roadrunner found outside Laguna Atascos National Wildlife Refuge in January 2017

Hit the jump to read more about my favorite runner.

Continue reading Totem Spirit

One Fast Cuckoo

Another day, another post! Guessing the doubters are starting to get a little concerned (hehehe). I’m not out of the woods completely, but as each post rolls out through the publishing pipeline the stress ratchets down another notch. The good news in all of this is I was able to get started on another vacation’s worth of shots from last year. The great news is it looks like the topic hopper will be full for an extended period of time based on activities that has transpired as of late. Of course, this does have the downside of erasing all the gains made on the already overflowing topic queue. A very good problem to have when all your peeps have such high expectations.

Speaking of queues, next pop from the stack places us back in Henderson Nevada, home of the Henderson Bird Viewing Preserve discussed a couple of posts back (link here). If you recall, that post introduced a new bird to the blog. Let’s continue that streak with still another new species.

Most people will recognize this bird thanks to the numerous references over the years. If you are struggling, imagine it as a highly clever bird painted in blue and yellow. No help? How about Beep Beep? If that didn’t trigger the name, then clearly you did not watch enough cartoons as a kid. Just in case the suspense is too high, this is a Greater Roadrunner. That day in Henderson officially marked the first time I’ve ever seen a live one of these and to say I was elated is an understatement. After shooting the Green-Winged Teal, a blur of brown and white caught my eye dashing across the shoreline of an adjacent pond. Intrigued, I immediately headed over there and tried to get a decent shot. Let it be known that the amazing speed of these birds is confirmed. It could flat out move making focus tracking nearly impossible. Left, right, under brush, out of brush, to the water, back to the shore – it never seemed to stop. To get the shots here required some high shutter speeds combined with just a smidgen of luck. Tracking brown colored birds against a brown backdrop makes for interesting times with the Beast, but when you get it… you generally get it.

Hit the jump to read more about this runner’s friend

Continue reading One Fast Cuckoo

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