From Janelle: Roadrunners must swallow whole, too. I watched one in my driveway catch a finch or sparrow; it proceeded to hold it by the head and beat it into a pulp on the concrete border of the driveway. Once the bones were all soft enough, it threw its head up in the air and proceeded to swallow it a little bit at a time. It took about 6-8 good swallows, and I swear that its eyes got bigger with each swallow – you could see this huge lump moving its way downward in its throat! It was truly fascinating (although not the best thing that ever happened to that little bird
©2012 Next-Door Nature—no reprints without written permission from the author (I’d love for you to share my work. Just ask first.). Thanks to these photographers for making their work available through a Creative Commons license: Pat Gaines (cover shot);
Kieran Lindsey
Kieran Lindsey loves looking for wild things in all the wrong places... so she became an urban biologist. Her quest to entice others to share this passion led to flirtations with (gasp!) the media—as a columnist for the Houston Chronicle; as host of KUNM-FM’s Wild Things; as producer of an Emmy® winning wildlife documentary; and at her Next-Door Nature blog. Kieran has way too much fun as official Animal-Vehicle Biologist for NPR's Car Talk, and she isn’t ashamed to admit it.
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