Secretary Bird

These birds of Sub-Saharan Africa's savannas, grasslands, and shrublands grow nearly four feet tall, and standing is often how you'll find them because they travel around mostly on foot. They only fly when it is very required, such as to reach their nest in the trees or for courtship displays. The secretary bird is recognisable by long legs and a striking black feather crest on the back of its head. It has whitish-gray feathers on its body and two long, black-tipped tail feathers. The colour of its exposed face is usually yellow, orange, or red. It appears to be wearing bicycle shorts since the top part of its long legs are covered in black feathers. The lower half is coated in scales and has feathers that are barely visible. 

While it is unknown where the name "secretary bird" originated, one theory is that they were named after 19th-century lawyer's clerks or secretaries. Secretaries wore grey coats and knee-length black slacks, and they tucked quill pens behind their ears, mimicking the bird's colouration and head feathers. Another hypothesis is that “secretary bird” is an English-language translation of saqr et-tair, which roughly translates to “hunter bird” in Arabic, and which one traveller claims to have heard Arabic-speaking people in Sudan refer to. Some experts, however, have called that reasoning into question.

Sagittarius serpentarius, the scientific name for secretary birds, translates as "the archer of snakes" and highlights this bird's capacity to kill even dangerous venomous snakes with its unique stomping method. While the secretary bird's powerful kick helps it to stun or even kill venomous snakes such as adders and cobras, it also has a variety of additional characteristics that keep it from being fatally bitten by its prey.

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Secretary Bird: Taxonomic Classification

In 1769, Dutch scientist Arnout Vosmaer described the secretary bird based on a live specimen transported to Holland from the Cape of Good Hope two years before by a Dutch East India Company official. According to Vosmaer, the species was given the name "sagittarius" by Dutch immigrants because of its movement, which was supposed to mimic that of an archer. Farmers who had domesticated the bird to combat pests around their homesteads called it the "secretarius," and he suspected that the name "secretarius" was a corruption of "sagittarius." According to Ian Glenn of the University of the Free State, Vosmaer's "sagittarius" is a misheard or mistranscribed variant of "secretarius," not the other way around. 

The scientific name Falco serpentarius was coined in 1779 by English painter John Frederick Miller, who included a coloured plate of the secretary bird in his Icones animalium et plantarum. Serpentarius holds precedence over later scientific names because it is the oldest published specific name. Johann Hermann, a French naturalist, classified the species to its own genus Sagittarius in his Tabula affinitatum animalium in 1783.

Physical Characteristics

The Secretary bird looks more like a stork or crane than a bird of prey. Secretary bird feet can be 1.3 – 1.4 metres (4.5 ft) tall, weigh 3.3 kilogrammes (7.3 pounds), and have a wingspan of more than 2 metres (6.6 feet). The Secretary bird's head is tiny, with small eyes and a hooked beak. Its plumage is a light bluish/grey colour, with a red face. Their flight feathers are black, and they have black feathers on their thighs and the rear of their heads. Their legs are large and powerful, and they use them to strike and pursue prey. When in flight, secretary birds have two centre extended feathers on their tail that extend beyond their feet. Their legs are covered in strong scales that protect them from snake attacks. Secretary birds' toes are large and blunt, with small curled talons on the ends, rather than grabbing toes like other birds of prey. Male and female appearances are comparable.

Secretary Bird Habitat

Secretary birds are native to Africa and can be found south of the Sahara Desert, from Senegal east to Somalia, and south to South Africa. The magnificent birds, which stand over four feet tall, skim over the grasses on long legs in search of a meal to eat. Secretary birds enjoy savannas with scattered acacia trees and short grasses that allow them to see while wandering.

Secretary birds emerge from their nocturnal roosts a few hours after sunrise to begin the day's hunt. Secretary bird pairs keep track of what's going on in their region, which can be as large as 19 square miles (50 square kilometres). They have been known to hunt for more than 20 miles (32 kilometres) in a single day. Secretary birds forage for food all day, resting in the shade of a tree during the warmest part of the day, and returning to their roost just before dusk.

Diet

The only two birds of prey that hunt on the ground rather than from the air are secretary birds and caracaras. Secretary birds eat tiny rodents, amphibians, and reptiles. Secretary birds hunt in small groups or with a partner from just after sunrise until late at night, only resting in the daytime heat. Secretary birds acquire prey by striking it with their short, hooked beaks, but they are most known for stomping it to death with their enormous feet and keen claws. Snakes are a favoured food, and the bird's scientific name, Sagittarius serpentarius, translates as "the archer of snakes." When a snake attempts to strike a secretary bird, it frequently ends up with a mouthful of feathers from the bird's nearly seven-foot wingspan, which it employs as a distraction. Their lower legs have scales that protect them from snake attacks.

Hunting Techniques

Secretary birds capture and kill their prey using a variety of novel hunting strategies. When looking for prey, for example, they stamp on plants to flush out animals from tall grass areas. They then pursue their target and strike it with their bill or foot until the animal is dead or dazed enough to consume. It has been shown that these birds can strike their prey with their feet with a force up to 5 times their own body weight and a contact length of only 10–15 milliseconds, making them exceptionally well-adapted for this hunting strategy. Secretary bird toes are quite short and have little grasping abilities. As a result, rather than transporting prey away with their feet as other birds of prey do, they either consume it right away or carry it away in their beaks. Secretary birds consume their food whole most of the time, but like other birds of prey, they will sometimes hold it down with their feet while tearing it apart.

Breeding

Mating rituals are performed both in the air and on the ground. They engage in airborne courtship displays known as "pendulum flights," which they share with other raptors. The bird will swoop down, then back up, repeating the undulating rhythm. When one dives at the other, the latter rolls backwards in the air, displaying its claws. A pair may dance around each other on the ground, wings outstretched, in a performance similar to that of cranes. Other secretary birds will occasionally join in. Mating partners construct stick nests, generally in an acacia tree. 

They will use the same nest for years, adding to it season after season. The female typically lays three blue-green eggs, which are incubated by both parents. After around 50 days, the eggs hatch, and both parents care for the young, including feeding them regurgitated prey. After around three months, the juvenile birds fledge.

Growth

One parent is always in the nest for the first few weeks, feeding and caring for the chick. Within 10 days, the secretary bird's unique bare patch on the cheek appears, but without the brilliant orange colouring. By the third week, the chick has a distinct secretary bird face, crest feathers begin to grow, and long eyelashes appear. At first, the parents rip up small bits of flesh for the chicks to eat. The down-covered newborns learn to eat small mammal and reptile pieces that the parents drop directly into the nest when they are around 40 days old. By six weeks, the chicks resemble completely feathered miniatures of adults. They begin to exercise their wings about 9 weeks of age and fledge at 12 weeks. Fledging for a secretary bird often entails a slightly controlled fall out of the nest with plenty of wing flailing until the kid lands! Parents then teach their children how to hunt, kick, and fly, and the children quickly wander off on their own.

Lifestyle

Courtship for secretary birds can occur at any time of year, depending on the amount of food available. Males and females both soar in large circles and conduct swoops and downward plunges, occasionally clasping talons in the air. The monogamous couple collaborates to build a big nest up to 8 feet (2.4 metres) across. Twigs, sticks, mammal hair, excrement, leaves, and grasses are used to construct the nest. For up to six months, the industrious couple works on and visits the nest; pairs frequently utilise the same nest for many years.

Secretary birds are usually quiet, although they will vocalise if necessary. During a courtship flight, during conflicts, or to protect territory or a nest, as crows and kites frequently assault secretary bird nestlings, who are easy targets in their treetop nests, a loud, low croak or a roaring groan might be made. When the bird is disturbed, it makes a single high croak, while quiet clucks and whistles are employed between partners. Chicks beg for food with a quiet chirping sound that develops into squeals and harsh brays as they grow larger.

Secretary Bird Nest

Nests are made on Acacia trees at a height of 5–7 m (16–23 ft). Before egg laying, both the male and female visit the nest site for about half a year. The nest is around 2.5 m (8 ft) wide and 30 cm (one foot) deep and is built as a reasonably flat basin of sticks.

Conservation Status

Because of human encroachment on secretary birds' native habitat, the species has been designated as vulnerable to extinction. Some of its grassland habitats have been removed and burned to make way for livestock. These open environments provide minimal cover for prey species, making it difficult for secretary birds to locate food. Some secretary birds may survive in man-made open spaces by scavenging tiny animals that could not escape fires or other predators. 

The presence of people, particularly herders, is known to disrupt secretary bird reproduction. Secretary birds may be found in a number of protected areas throughout their vast range, but scientists say improved monitoring is needed to track their numbers and quantify their loss in some regions.

Interesting Facts 

• Secretary Bird Habitat is in two countries: Sudan and South Africa.

• Snakes are a minor component of the secretary bird's diet, which also includes insects, small animals, bird eggs, crabs, and other reptiles.

• Secretary birds shock their food with the thicker soles of their feet before devouring it whole.

• Scientists were able to learn more about the hunting techniques of the prehistoric 'terror birds' by studying the secretary bird's eating technique. These were massive flightless carnivores that roamed the Earth about 3 million years ago.

• There are several ideas on the origins of the secretary bird's name. According to one theory, the feathers behind the bird's head reminded nineteenth-century Europeans of the quill pens that secretaries tucked behind their ears.

• The secretary bird is easily identified as a huge bird with an eagle-like body and crane-like legs.

• This bird has rounded wings and an eagle-like head with a hooked bill.

• The plumage is mostly grey, with a few white feathers thrown in for good measure. They have black flight feathers on their wings and a black-tipped feather crest on the rear of their heads. The colour of the bare face ranges from orange to red.

• The secretary bird's legs are the longest of any bird of prey.

• Secretary birds prefer to walk rather than fly, averaging 20 to 30 kilometres (12 to 19 mi) per day.

• Fact about Secretary Bird Flying: Secretary birds spend most of their time on the ground, yet they are excellent fliers. They fly well and frequently to enormous heights when they do fly. Their lengthy legs trail behind them in the air as they fly.

• Insects, mammals ranging in size from mice to hares and mongooses, crabs, scorpions, lizards, snakes (including numerous dangerous species), tortoises, young birds, bird eggs, and occasionally dead animals burned in grass or bush fires comprise their diet.

The English name for the secretary bird was considered to have originated in the 1800s when Europeans first saw these birds. Male secretaries wore grey tailcoats and dark knee-length pants back then. They also drew with goose-quill pens and carried them behind their ears. Many of these physical characteristics are shared by this long-legged bird: long, dark quills at the rear of the head; long, grey wing and tail feathers that resemble a tailcoat; and black feathers that go halfway down the legs like short pants. It's entertaining to speculate on how the two "secretaries" compare. 

Buzzards, vultures, harriers, and kites are all distant relatives of secretary birds. Secretary birds, on the other hand, spend most of their time on the ground, unlike their hawk counterparts. Secretary birds are territorial, with territories ranging from 40 to 50 square kilometres. Although the secretary bird can fly, it spends most of its time on the ground. It flies nicely but requires a long take-off run before taking off. Secretary birds mate for life, and while they might be lonely outside of the mating season, the other half of a couple is generally not far away. Secretary birds are almost always silent. When showing for a mate, the only sound they make is a croaking sound.