As I watched the roadrunner sing I thought back to when I was in third grade. My parents moved me to a Catholic school mid-year. It was the first day and our teacher was discussing the desert. She asked the class if we could name animals that didn't need a lot of water so they could live in dry climates. I raised my hand and answered roadrunner. She smiled and said, "No, those only exist in Cartoon Land."
She immediately moved on to another student but I couldn't believe she didn't know about roadrunners. The next morning before school I gathered up my National Geographic Field Guide with the roadrunner page bookmarked, my Wonder of Birds book that had a cool series of roadrunner pictures of the adults killing a lizard and feeding it to their chicks, my collection of state bird stamps that included the stamp for New Mexico that had a roadrunner on it, and a tourist brochure for New Mexico that had a picture of a roadrunner on it. I waited until lunchtime and went to the teacher's lounge--it was a different world then, the teacher's lounge door was open so you could see your teachers smoking and if you needed to, you could come in and ask a question. I went in with all of my birding paraphernalia and up to my new third grade teacher who was talking to the Sister Elizabeth the fourth grade teacher, Mrs. Stahl the social studies teacher and the principal Mr. Greer.
"Hi Mrs. Meyers," I said, "I just wanted to let you know that roadrunners do live in real life and they're the state bird of New Mexico." I opened my books and showed the pictures. "I can see why you might be confused, they're not blue like in Bugs Bunny, they're really brown and sometimes people call them the chaparral cock."
Mrs. Meyers nodded, said she had things to do and left the lounge. I was not her favorite student after that. But it turned out ok, the fourth grade teacher was a nun with a stern reputation. She was also a birder and Sister Elizabeth and I got along just fine when I hit fourth grade. She even gave me a Forebush/May book on the final day of fourth grade.
Anyway, here's a little video that I got of the roadrunner. You might need headphones to hear the call. iPhones don't have the best microphones and the soft call of a roadrunner is going to be overpowered by dickcissels singing away.