the secretary bird

the secretary bird is one of the most gorgeous and widespread birds in all of sub-Saharan Africa they can be found strutting around in open grasslands and savannas across the continent despite their stork like physique their closest relatives are birds of prey like eagles and hawks and like birds of prey they have a special ability they can squirt their feces instead of dropping it wonderful secretary birds are basically Eagles on stilts and can be up to 1.3 meters tall which is almost as tall as I am which for a human isn't very tall surprisingly these tall birds are incredibly light at just about 4 kilograms their hollow bones help them get very tall and statuesque without making them too heavy for flight they can fly at heights of up to 3,000 metres but they're not quite as graceful as their aquiline cousins but when you look this fly on land there's little reason to leave the ground 

these killer Queens have been turning heads for thousands of years even the ancient Egyptians admired them by reliefs depicting secretary birds were recently discovered at the temple of huts upset the amazing thing is that there are no secretary birds in Egypt the artists were so awestruck by their beauty that they carved the beautiful birds and stone for posterity European natural   were also struck by their elegance they were originally named Sagittarius which is Greek for Archer because of their refined and deliberate gait as well as for their head feathers which resemble the arrows sticking out of an archers quiver nobody knows for sure how the name changed from Sagittarius to the less impressive secretary bird the leading theory is that they reminded English naturalist of their secretaries who used to doze goose quill pens and put them in their hair 

when they were not writing the other theory is that it comes from the Arabic word Sakura air which means hunter bird but please forgive my pronunciation can't pretend that I know how to do that correctly and that might be a more accurate name everything about their biology is designed for hunting dangerous prey particularly venomous snakes they have legs for days but their stomping machines that kick with deadly accuracy when they find a snake secretary birds go for the head and stomp with ferocious speed their stoves can produce forces of 20 kilograms that's five times greater than their bodyweight they're fashion-forward plumage serves as a distraction when hunting they shake their tail feathers and wings to get the snakes attention away from their legs to prevent them from biting them some reports even suggest that they're at least partially immune to snake venom as the secondary safety measure their contact time with the snake is just about 15 milliseconds that's faster than the blink of an eye and more importantly faster than a snake's reaction

 time just call them foot of the North star blink and you'll miss it their beautiful eyes have luscious eyelashes these are modified feathers that filter debris when they're stomping and kicking up dust maybe it's an evolutionary trait developed over hundreds of thousands of years to protect their most important sensory organ maybe it's Madeline in any case they have the prettiest peepers in the animal kingdom with these extravagant looks you would expect them to behave even Casanova’s but they're really more like Romeo and Juliet's during courtship males perform an elaborate flight display if a female likes them they'll form a monogamous couple and will build a large nest on an acacia tree the nests are about two and a half meters wide spacious enough for the two secretary birds and a couple of babies to feed their babies secretary birds carry food in their mouths rather than with their talons their legs are deadly stomping machines and their talons are sharp 

enough to shred prey to pieces but their feet are not strong enough to carry heavy prey unfortunately even though they can lay up to 4 eggs usually only two babies survive they have to compete with each other for the food that their parents bring home the youngest one usually starves to death this fratricidal conflict is also known as cane ism parental care doesn't end at the nest after 80 days the babies fledge and leave the nest but the parents stick around until the young learn how to hunt for themselves once they're fully grown and pretty they'll disperse and start their own beautiful families when animals start to talk about next