When we first moved to the Cove, a family of roadrunners lived near the creek bed on the path to the beach. But then the real estate boom happened and so many golf carts came to the Cove that the path to the beach soon turned into the road to the beach and the roadrunners (irony!) moved further up into canyon. (The family of California quail that lived in the underbrush also vanished.)

So I'd see the roadrunners up at the barn -- that's where this photo was shot -- and on the road to the barn and in the open space around the canyon. And then another real estate boom happened, and by 'boom' I mean acres and acres of open space were scraped clean and huge houses were built and fences erected and it's now been over a year since I've seen any roadrunners. Or quail. Or, come to think of it, bobcats.

But there sure are a lot of big new houses for sale.