Yeah, the roadrunner thing was a totally random event we came upon at Udall park. We were riding our bikes around the desert area there and my husband told me to stop and pointed out the snake. Then we saw the roadrunner come in and do a series of fast attacks on the snake. I thought for sure the roadrunner was going to be at the losing end of that battle because hi, it was a rattlesnake! The roadrunner was faster though and after like 10 minutes of doing fast dash drive by peckings, it won and dragged away the dead snake.

It. Was. Awesome. Not that the snake died or anything, just that we got to see that because whoah, amazing!

I spent a large amount of growing up out in the desert with my cousins, outside of Marana. We'd catch horny toads and other lizards all the time and during the summer, we'd catch poison toads and then let them all go. My cousins would also catch tarantulas and a male cousin once found a bull snake hanging out in the yard so he picked it up, draped it across his shoulder and spent the afternoon scaring the bejeezus out of my aunts. Oh, and as a teenager, I came thisclose to sitting on a coral snake at a friend's house in the foothills. We had mesquite tree forts and had all kinds of unsupervised desert fun but never did I ever get to see a gila monster. Still jealous!

I handle mostly pet reptiles. Legless lizards being the most unique I've ever held, reticulated pythons, ball pythons (my favorite), water monitors, anoles, chameleons, bearded dragons, horned lizards, boas, alligator lizards and geckos.

Something about those gilas I don't like.

Maybe it's their penchant for chomping down and not letting go, so that if you get bitten by a gila monster your first problem is figuring out how to get it off of you. Sticking a twig up their nostril or dunking them in a bucket of water is supposed to be a good technique, but I wouldn't know because I've been careful to not get bitten in the first place. Their venom isn't deadly, but they should definitely be treated with respect.

Well I didn't mean that I would like my back yard full of grizzly bears lol. I am weird but not THAT weird. But having around the little black ones who steal pies from your windowsill... Oh yes definitely!!!!!

I have a question. Is a roadrunner a big naughty bird like the one in the cartoons??? I never ever heard that he was a real creature! This is awesome.

I'd say a roadrunner is about twice the size or so of a cockatiel with long legs and a longish neck. They run fast and are cool to watch. They will run around looking for lizards and stuff (and apparently rattlesnakes!) to eat and every once in a while, they'll stop, spread their tail feathers a bit, look around, then lower their heads and run off again. It's not hard to imagine a "meep meep!" when they do this. They're not too wary of humans so if you live or work near a large desert area, you will see them pretty often.

Here's a neat little video of them. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RU_7nZbII6o

Roadrunners are weird birds. I love to watch them. A lot of times the way they move makes me think of a cat more than a bird. I don't get too many of them in the yard but they do show up several times a year. Like this one:

Your yard looks very nice! How in the world do you find the time to work, raise birds and keep a nice house!!

I only work part time lol. If you saw the inside of my house you wouldn't be impressed with the housekeeping.

That's awesome garden. I like the fountain.

The pic of the Bobcats is beautiful! We have them up north where our camp is in the Adirondacks.