Let us start with where these birds live, how big they are and how they are built for walking. Secretarybirds live in Africa, south of the Sahara Desert, and they like open places with short grass, such as savanna. A secretarybird looks for grassland where the grass is short enough that its view is not blocked. Secretarybirds avoid thick forest and dense woodland. Secretarybirds have been found from sea level to around 3,000 meters up. A secretarybird stands about 0.9 to 1.5 meters tall, and it has very long legs for a bird of prey.

Next, let us follow a secretarybird through its day and measure how far its legs carry it. Here are the numbers and the habits that fill its day on the ground. A secretarybird can fly, but it prefers to walk. One name for the secretarybird is the marching eagle, because of the way it lifts its legs as it walks. It walks at about 2 to 3 kilometres per hour on the ground, and it walks about 20 to 30 kilometres in a day. When it is startled, a secretarybird runs before it takes off.

Here is how a secretarybird hunts, what happens to the prey it takes and what one study measured. A secretarybird hunts on the ground. Once it spots prey, it quickens its pace to take the prey by surprise. If a clump of grass is thick, a secretarybird stamps on it to flush out any prey hiding inside. A secretarybird stamps on small prey with its feet. Secretarybirds sometimes throw their prey high into the air. A secretarybird swallows small prey whole. The prey a secretarybird takes is listed as anything less than 500 grams. In a published study, kicks from a captive secretarybird reached 195 newtons, about five times its body weight.

Now let us look at what it eats and at what it does with the parts it cannot digest. Here is what the lists of its prey tell us. A secretarybird is an opportunistic predator, which means it eats many kinds of prey. Most of what a secretarybird eats is arthropods such as grasshoppers, beetles, wasps, spiders and scorpions. A secretarybird eats small mammals, birds and lizards, and sometimes snakes, and secretarybirds hunt snakes, even venomous ones. You may have heard that it eats nothing but snakes, but secretarybirds do not always eat snakes. A secretarybird coughs up the parts it cannot digest as a large pellet below its roosting site.

Now let us look at the names people have given this bird and at what it looks like. A secretarybird's scientific name means "bowman" in Latin, and it is also called "the archer of snakes." The name secretarybird may come from an Arabic word for hunter and hawk. One explanation for the name secretary is that the long feathers on the bird's neck look like a quill pen tucked behind a scribe's ear. It has a crest of long black feathers at the back of its head, and its feathers are mostly gray, with black flight feathers on its wings.

As of November 2026, the IUCN Red List lists the secretarybird as Endangered; it was last assessed in April 2020. As of November 2026, BirdLife International estimated in 2016 that there were 6,700 to 67,000 mature secretarybirds. As of November 2026, declines of secretarybirds across Africa were first noticed by BirdLife partners, other bird experts and citizen scientists. As of November 2026, the San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance library lists burning of grasslands, loss of prey and spreading cultivation as threats to secretarybirds. Losing the places where they live is a threat to secretarybirds. Scientists do not yet know all the reasons why secretarybirds are declining. Researchers use GPS transmitters to follow secretarybirds, and conservation groups keep track of where secretarybirds nest.

Last, let us see how a family begins, from the nest and the eggs to the chicks that leave it. Here is how long each step takes. Secretarybirds build their nests in trees, and the male and the female build the nest together. A secretarybird nest can be as wide as about 2.4 meters across. A secretarybird lays one to three eggs, and it lays its eggs two to three days apart. Both secretarybird parents take turns sitting on the eggs. A secretarybird egg hatches after about 42 to 46 days. After hatching, secretarybird chicks leave the nest, or fledge, after 64 to 106 days. Secretarybird parents feed their chicks.

Words to know

• newtons: force units
• pellet: a coughed-up ball
• mature: full grown
• opportunistic: eats many kinds
• Endangered: at risk
• fledge: leave the nest