During my recent visit to the Wichita Mountains NWR in southwest Oklahoma, I was driving one of the refuge roads when a Greater Roadrunner (Geococcyx californianus) ran across the road in front of me. As I stopped the vehicle to grab some images, the bird made a dashing run into the brush. Fortunately, I rolled the truck to a small clearing where I was able to capture this image before he ran off further into the brush:
A short time later, while driving the same road, in about the same place, a roadrunner ran back across the road, with a small lizard in his mouth. Unfortunately, he ran into thick brush and I was not able to capture any images.
Photographic Equipment Used:
- Canon 7D body
- Canon EF100mm-400mm, f/4.5-f/5.6, IS lens, shot at 400mm
- Handheld, from my truck, with IS “On”
- ISO 500
- Aperture f/18 (prior to grabbing the above image, I had been shooting bison in the landscape, so used f/18 to include the scenic background)
- Shutter 1/100 sec.