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Today on Animal Fact Files we’re talking about secretary birds. Don’t forget to subscribe and thank you to our classmate Delport-san for today’s striking request! Secretary birds are not easily mistaken. With their colorful faces, crest of head feathers, and long legs, they are quite unlike any other living bird species. Also they wear shorts, I mean, just look at that. The name secretary bird may come from one of two origins. First, it could be said that these birds look like historical secretaries who wore their quill pens behind their ears; second, the name may come from the Arabic language and mean something along the lines of “hunter bird”, which is pretty apt for this species!

Secretary birds are birds of prey, however, instead of taking to the skies, they do their hunting on the ground. Their long legs allow them to see over the top of grasses in the savannahs they inhabit. The main prey items of secretary birds consist of arthropods and small mammals, though these birds will also take small reptiles, other birds, eggs, and even crustaceans. Perhaps their most well known dietary choice, however, are venomous snakes. Secretary birds hunt in one of two ways. They’ll chase down and either scoop up their prey in their beaks consuming it whole or they’ll stomp on the prey to stun or kill it before eating it, also usually whole. Venomous snakes don’t have much of a chance because the secretary birds will flap their wings as a distraction tactic when taking on a deadly serpent. A bite from a snake into nothing but feathers poses no threat to the secretary birds.

Secretary birds are found in Africa. They prefer open areas of land with sporadic standing trees on which they can roost and build their nests. At night, secretary birds stay in trees. A few hours after the sun has risen and the morning dew has dried, they’ll go about their day. When they aren’t foraging for food, they may seek out their mate for some sexy time. Secretary birds breed year round and may produce more than one clutch of eggs per year. Both the parents help build their nest or add to the nest that was used in previous years. Their nests can become more than six and a half feet (2 meters) across meaning the average human could laid down in it without touching the edges. Though, I wouldn’t recommend that because poo is part of the nest building material. Unless you’re into that… The female will lay one to three eggs over the course of about a week as each egg is laid a few days apart. Incubation is completed by both parents and when the chicks hatch they actually don’t try to kill each other. Yes, this is an exception. Birds of prey are kind of scarier than you might have realized.

It takes a little more than four months for the chicks to leave the nest, but they’ll stick around in their parent’s territory until they learn how to hunt, or until their parents get tired of them and kick them out. They’ll have reached adult size when they’re a little over three feet (1 meter) tall. In captivity, secretary birds can live to be almost twenty years old, though they may not live as long in captivity. Adults generally don’t have to worry about predators, but the eggs and young secretary birds may be taken by crows, ravens, hornbills, eagles, owls, and kites.

For more facts on secretary birds, check out the links in the description! Give a thumbs up if you learned something new today, and thank you for watching Animal Fact Files!