Be-Beep! Be-Beep! and eep, eep...

We've seen roadrunners all over the park... I love 'em. Although they will walk right up to the campsite, these wily characters are not that easy to photograph.

Even more difficult to photograph, and more exciting to see, was a little tribe of four coatimundis (same family as racoons) that wandered past us on our afternoon hike. Unfortunately, they were across a canyon, so we couldn't see them well - as evidenced by this photo! Can you see the two dark patches that might be animals??

Odel was amazed to see animal he had not even heard of before. I had seen one several years ago, on a road in Costa Rica with my friends Pat and Becky, so I recognized them with GREAT surprise!

Here is a description from "Southern Arizona Nature Almanac":

The reaction of most people at seeing one is utter astonishment. The coatimundi looks more like a benign cartoon creature invented for a children's book than a real animal. Its long, faintly ringed tail sticks jauntily straight up in the air while the black nose on the tip of its extended snout seems to have a life of its own, probing the air this way and that. Coatis often travel in groups of a dozen or more animals and frequently mutter to each other with high-pitched little eeps.

That is a perfect description, right down to the eeps.