Dinosaur Views

A quick movement through the window distracts me and when I look up I am staring into one eye of a raptor. Standing framed by cast iron bars of the fence, this 20" apparition is looking at something in the yard, not me. His stare is so strong, I gasp. Roadrunner is a member of the cuckoo family. No resemblance to silly birds of carved wooden house clocks, the roadrunner I see has locked it's eye onto prey. This bird runs across the yard and stops beak to the ground pulling a lizard up into the air. I like lizards. They keep the bug population down and they provide endless entertainment to a certain golden retriever who is convinced she can catch one. I did not like seeing the lizard consumed by a dinosaur. This is a hard place to be a lizard, or a rabbit, or a snake or sometimes even a javelina. Roadrunners, red tailed hawks, great horned owl, coyotes, bobcat, mountain lion and even jaguar are venturing into the desert every day. Driving on a low mountain pass in November, we saw a mountain lion leap across the rode in front of us with a young javelina in it's mouth. The screams of the coyote kill likely means the end of a rabbit. Roadrunners will kill snakes and even go after a baby rabbit. This place is a leap back in time to a Jurassic jungle. It is an illusion that we are safe here. There are reasons that people carry guns here. They are dinosaurs, lions and tigers and bears, oh my. copyright 2009 vickers