secretary bird

a kind of bird – bird of prey (= hunts and kills other animals and birds to eat) – ground-dwelling (= living mostly on land) – large bird with grey feathers with black on the wing tips, tail and the thighs, head like that of an eagle with thick sharp down-ward curved beak (bill), a crest (= a tuft of long feathers) on the back of the head, with a yellow and orange-red face mark, slender neck, very long legs as that of a crane, long tail; size: 3-5 feet tall, and weight: 3-4 Kg; feeds on insects, rats, mice, lizards, snakes, small young birds and bird eggs; lives for 10-15 years in the wild and for 20 years in captivity; only one of its kind in its family, found in sub-Sahara Africa

male ~~ male (cock (?))

female ~~ female (hen (?))

baby ~~ chick

group ~~ flock

voice (call) ~~  croak {mostly silent}

home ~~ nest (on tree tops or in the branch forks of, mostly, acacia trees, for laying eggs and raising chicks)

Special Features:

The ‘secretary bird’ is featured in the ‘coats of arms’ of Sudan and South Africa; it is also seen on the President’s Flag of Sudan. {The ‘secretary bird’ is the national bird of Sudan, Africa. (?)}

Though the secretary bird spends most of its time on the ground, it can fly very well!

At night it perches (= sits on a tree branch) on a tree, usually acacia tree, to sleep.

There are several versions of how the bird got its name ‘secretary’ bird: one is this bird’s crest (= a tuft of feathers on the back of the neck) that looks like (remind us of) the quills which the office secretaries in olden days used to tuck behind their ears; the other one from the Arabic word ‘saqr-et-tair’ which, in English, means ‘hunter bird’; and its scientific name ‘sagittarius’ means “the archer of snakes”!

The secretary bird is different from the other birds of prey, in that it hunts on the ground as an animal does!

The secretary bird has a partiality for snakes. It has a good reputation as a ‘snake killer’.

Unlike other birds of prey which scoop the snakes from the ground and kill them and eat them on a branch of a tree (perched on a tree), the secretary birds hunts the snakes on the ground using its long legs to stomp on them or to beat them against the ground several time until the snake is stunned or dead, or using its strong beak (bill) to break its neck.  The large wing feathers guard it against the snake’s venomous (= poisonous) bite!

In South Africa, secretary birds are kept for killing snakes and rats!

<<< Back to List S —-    Next … seps >>>