Finally after 3 years in the new Terra Nova, we’re having landscaping installed. It’s nearly finished now following a couple of weeks of trenching and pipe-laying and digging and planting, and it’s going to be wonderful. No more dirt tracked into the house multiple times a day by our herd of Newfs plus a lovely, tranquil ambiance just outside our windows, complete with the bubbling of fountains front and back.
Already, we’ve noticed an increase in the wildlife. Bees and hummingbirds are buzzing all around. Fluttering clouds of finches dart past on their way to and from the fountains. And Friday night when we first turned the new irrigation system on, we noticed a roadrunner investigating the front yard. Look at that, we said. How cool. We’ve always loved these sleek, swift birds, always trotting intently from one place to another, always seemingly on a mission. It’s not often you seem them, though. We consider it a treat. One day I was sitting at our dining room table, looking out the sliding doors onto the back patio, when a big, gorgeous male roadrunner calmly strutted by. And now this one out front.
Already, we’ve noticed an increase in the wildlife. Bees and hummingbirds are buzzing all around. Fluttering clouds of finches dart past on their way to and from the fountains. And Friday night when we first turned the new irrigation system on, we noticed a roadrunner investigating the front yard. Look at that, we said. How cool. We’ve always loved these sleek, swift birds, always trotting intently from one place to another, always seemingly on a mission. It’s not often you seem them, though. We consider it a treat. One day I was sitting at our dining room table, looking out the sliding doors onto the back patio, when a big, gorgeous male roadrunner calmly strutted by. And now this one out front.
Saturday morning I was out watering the new plants when I caught sight of something moving in the bushes down the slope. It was a pair of roadrunners, bowing and fluttering at each other. Later we saw three of them at the same time, leading us to believe we had a whole roadrunner family coming of age somewhere right around the house. The adult birds tend to be solitary, and we’ve never seen more than one at a time. But Saturday we saw them all day. Roadrunners atop nearly every boulder, trotting by nearly every window, some coming right up and peering in for 5, 10 minutes at a time, oblivious to our movements inside.
It was a crazy hot day, over a hundred in the shade, so I turned on a hose out back to create a puddle, which at least one of the birds found and sipped from gratefully until Lilo appeared from around the corner and ran it off. But even then the roadrunner seemed reluctant to leave. It hopped up on the patio table, then spread a wide set of wings, displaying surprisingly blue iridescent tail feathers, and half hopped, half flew off to the other side of the closest boulder, off no doubt to stalk another meal of bugs or lizards. Only one sighting yesterday, and it was a fair way off, sailing from a boulder to the ground where it disappeared into the brush. And today, so far, nada. But for one day, at least, it was coyote paradise around here.
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