PromotedCountry intro
Secretary "Terror" bird in Ngorongoro crater, Tanzania
When I first saw a Secretary Bird in a local zoo, I just thought it was an unusual looking bird. It turns out there is much more to it than its beauty. It's quite a terror bird as well. This large bird feeds on insects, lizards, snakes and small mammals. The are even reports of these birds killing young gazelles, chasing them by foot!
And it gets weirder. Secretary birds are known to hide at the edge of a fire, killing anything that comes out of the area trying to escape the fire. Their killing methods aren't very subtle either. Small prey is generally stumped to death by its feet, breaking their neck or back, or bashing their head until the prey is numb. Some claim these birds even drop prey to death. Next, most are swallowed whole.
In other words, this is not a secretary to mess with.
The Secretarybird or Secretary Bird is a large, mostly terrestrial bird of prey. Endemic to Africa, it is usually found in the open grasslands and savannah of the sub-Sahara. Although a member of the order Accipitriformes, which also includes many other diurnal raptors such as kites, buzzards, vultures, and harriers, it is given its own family, Sagittariidae.
comments (4)