This is the secretarybird. It has very long legs for a bird of prey. It has a crest of long black feathers. The crest is at the back of its head. Black feathers on its upper legs look like short pants. It can fly, but it prefers to walk. It walks about 20 to 30 kilometres in a day.

Let us see where it lives and how it hunts. These birds live in Africa, south of the Sahara Desert. They like open places with short grass, such as savanna. A secretarybird hunts on the ground. When it is startled, it runs before it takes off.

Most of what it eats is arthropods, such as grasshoppers, beetles, wasps, spiders and scorpions. It eats small mammals, birds and lizards, and sometimes snakes. It hunts snakes, even venomous ones. It stamps on small prey with its feet. It swallows small prey whole.

Now let us see how it nests. These birds build their nests in trees. The male and the female build the nest together. A nest can be as wide as about 2.4 meters across. A secretarybird lays one to three eggs. Secretarybird parents feed their chicks.

Words to know

• prey: hunted animals
• arthropods: bugs, spiders
• venomous: has venom
• startled: suddenly scared
• savanna: open grassland