| Welcome to the Metter, GA RoadRunner's Camping Club Web Site. Club President 2019 Norm Schoppenhorst AB9FC Email: AB9FC@arrl.Net Information about this web site may be obtained from the Editor at: fred@fredandpatti.com |
| By Betty Vaughn (http://www.bettyvaughnart.com/index.html) |
| This Camping Club consists of Southern Ladies and Gentlemen who normally meet doing the week of the 3rd Thursday of each month in different camp grounds for social gatherings and camping fun. Several of our group are Amateur Radio Operators (Ham Radio) and "sport" different antenna's on their coaches and toads. Also, some members are into Geocaching. (Ga. State parks is a treasure cove for geocaching.) The purpose of this web site is to keep our members and friends informed of future planned activities. Should any non-member stumble on this web site, the welcome mat is always open - please contact the club president for more information. |
The Metter Roadrunner George Lilley KL7IEK Road·run·ner -ˈrōdˌrənər noun – a slender fast-running bird of the cuckoo family, found chiefly in arid country from the southern US to Central America. But what is the infamous Metter Roadrunner? Still belonging to the cuckoo family, the Eastern Metter Roadrunner is a rare bird indeed. It can only be seen during the second week of each month. It only ventures out of its nest Monday through Friday. This behavior may seem strange, but it makes perfect sense when you consider the number of Weekend wily coyotes found lurking throughout the Georgia State Parks. Some weird habits that are observed of this strange member of the cuckoo family are its eating habits. It is reported that this strange bird will eat extreme amounts of food during the week it spends out of the nest. Then the bird returns to its nesting area, eating very little so as to motivate it to return month after month to a new feeding location. The Metter Roadrunner has a very strange call. Some have said that it sounds like random groups of letters that are blurted out at very high frequencies. Some have said that they have captured these strange vocalizations; i.e. WK1F, WK1E, W4CYJ, N4FOH, W4TFK, etc. One of the rarest calls reportedly is that of the Arctic Roadrunner which is often found flocking with its southern cousin. The Arctic Roadrunner’s haunting call sounds like KL7IEK. Many of these strange sounds can also be heard calling out to other migrating birds, most commonly the migrating Snow Bird, between 0700 to 0900 each day of the week. This is strange behavior indeed. I’ve heard it said that these strange creatures actually take a mobile nest with them and can be captured at many of Georgia’s state parks and numerous other wooded camping areas. It’s said that this behavior is driven by its need to escape from the weekend wily coyotes trying to take part in the Metter Roadrunners feeding habits. So here is hoping that in your travels through the great southeast you get the chance see one of these rare birds. I really hope that you can get a picture of one or two of them. If you do, please try to get it into the next news-letter. Be very careful, it has been said that the habits of this bird can be catching. Cheers George, AKA the strange bird from up north KL7IEK, squawk, squawk, squawk… |
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