Photo of the Day: Greater Roadrunner

No creature is too fast for Hector Astorga's lens.

They say that people like to take things slow in Texas. But birds might be the exception to the rule.

Hector Astorga was scanning the grasslands of Santa Clara, Texas, when he set eyes on a greater roadrunner climbing up a raptor perch. The bird zipped up and down the stake a few times, before racing away into the flat distance. Astorga had set out to photograph birds of prey. But instead of finding a master aerialist, he caught an ace sprinter.

Astorga is a ranch manager, and a photography guide and instructor in Santa Clara. He takes gorgeous shots of the unique, South Texas landscapes with his Nikon cameras and Gitzo tripods. A recent photography trip to Yellowstone went awry when he fell and broke his leg in two places. Astorga is now recovering back at home, while his subject, the greater roadrunner, continues to comb the open frontier.

This image was a Top 100 photo from the 2013 Audubon Magazine Photography Awards. To see all of the photos, click here.