No Beep-Beep, Barely Even a Cheep From Rogue Road Runner

A subdued and confused Twentynine Palms road runner with a timid squeak flew back home Tuesday from Wisconsin--on a Delta jet.

The road runner returned to the desert after a 24-day odyssey that included traveling 1,900 miles during four days locked in a moving van without food or water. Apparently it hitched a ride in the van, rented by Marine Staff Sgt. Brian Cornett and his wife Barbara, who were on their way to Eau Claire, Wis., where Cornett was reassigned.

When the bird arrived in Wisconsin, it seemed as though the only thing people knew about road runners was what they’ve seen in cartoons.

“How come the road runner doesn’t beep-beep?” asked a steady stream of boys and girls who came to see the bird at the Chippewa Falls home of Dr. Charles Kemper, who agreed to care for it.

“Seems like half the kids in town dropped by the house,” said Kemper. “They were all downright disappointed--no beep-beeps.”

He kept the bird in his home at night and in his enclosed patio during the day. He fed the road runner minnows because he once had success feeding the little fish to an injured sparrow hawk. “The road runner took to the minnows like a duck to water. He ate as many as 15 a day,” the doctor said.

The Cornetts left the back of the packed van open the night before they left Southern California and closed it early in the morning, not knowing the bird was trapped inside.

They learned they had a hitchhiking road runner when they arrived at their new home and started unpacking the furniture. The bird cringed in a corner of the van.

The Cornetts called the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources. A warden answered the call and caught the bird in a net, and the road runner was placed in Kemper’s care.

The doctor called several zoos in Wisconsin and Minnesota hoping they would take the bird, but no one wanted a road runner.

Kemper even called the office of the Green Bay Packers and asked if the players would take the road runner with them on a trip west and release the bird in the Arizona desert.

“Green Bay had a great football player, Travis (Road Runner) Williams. I thought that kind of a connection would do it, but they turned me down,” he said.

Finally, Kemper called ranger Ann Garry at Joshua Tree National Monument near Twentynine Palms. The doctor and the ranger agreed that the bird should be returned to where it came from.

Frank Sorrentino, a friend and patient of Kemper, drove the road runner from Chippewa Falls 90 miles to the airport in Minneapolis and put it on the Delta flight.

The bird flew home in an animal carrier in the baggage department, a 5 1/2-hour flight that included a stopover in Salt Lake City. Ranger Garry was waiting at the Palm Springs Airport when it arrived.

On arrival the road runner lay in a corner of the animal carrier in shock. Ranger Garry drove the bird to Copper Mountain College in Joshua Tree where Robert Delacy, an expert on desert birds, checked its health.

“He’s tired, somewhat confused, but appears to be quite strong,” Garry said after delivering the road runner.

“He will be fine and should be released in the next day or two near where he hopped into the moving van,” Garry said.

Road runners do not migrate, experts say. They normally live out their lives within a two-mile radius.

At least some do.