Secretarybird

Appearance

During flight, two elongated central feathers of the tail extend beyond the feet, and the neck stretches out like a stork. The plumage of the crown, upperparts, and lesser and median wing coverts is blue-grey, and the underparts and underwing coverts are lighter grey to grey-white. The crest is made up of long, black feathers arising from the nape.

It has a length of between 1.1 and 1.5 m (3 ft 7 in and 4 ft 11 in) and a wingspan between 1.9 and 2.1 m (6 ft 3 in and 6 ft 11 in).

Published measurements include mass about 130.

Range and habitat

The Secretarybird is endemic to sub-Saharan Africa and is generally nonmigratory, though it may be locally nomadic, as it follows rainfall and the resulting abundance of prey. Its range extends from Senegal to Somalia and south to Western Cape, South Africa. The species is also found at a variety of elevations, from the coastal plains to the highlands.

Pins are Wikidata “endemic to” fields. Orange dots, when present, are GBIF occurrence tiles — survey bias included.

Diet and breeding

Mated pairs roost together, but may forage separately, though often remaining in sight of one another. During courtship, they exhibit a nuptial display by soaring high with undulating flight patterns and calling with guttural croaking.

The nest is built by both sexes at the top of a dense, thorny tree, often an Acacia, at a height between 2.5 and 13 m (8 and 40 ft) above the ground. The nest is constructed as a relatively flat platform of sticks 1.0–1.5 m (3–5 ft) across with a depth 30–50 cm (12–20 in).

In crisis

Although the Secretarybird resides over a large range, the results of localized surveys suggest that the total population is experiencing a rapid decline, probably as a result of habitat destruction. The species is therefore classed as endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature. The International Union for Conservation of Nature listed the Secretarybird in 2016 as a vulnerable species and as endangered in 2020, due to a recent rapid decline across its entire range.

Although widespread, the species is thinly distributed across its range. Its population has been estimated in 2016 to be between 6,700 and 67,000 individuals. Long-term monitoring across South Africa between 1987 and 2013 has shown that populations have declined across the country, even in protected areas such as Kruger National Park due to woody plant encroachment, an increase in the tall vegetation cover, resulting in loss of open habitat that the species prefers.

CITES lists this taxon on Appendix II. Confirm the current appendix on the CITES checklist.

Secretarybird is Endangered on this catalog because that is the IUCN category stored on Wikidata. Confirm the official criteria and any later count on iucnredlist.org.

Sources

Written for this catalog from the English Wikipedia article on Secretarybird, Wikidata item Q168748. Family and order context is original field-guide writing about the group, not a copied assessment of this one species. Wikipedia text is CC BY-SA. Not an IUCN assessment. Counts, when quoted, can change — confirm them on the recovery programme and on iucnredlist.org.