How did the secretary bird get its name?

 

 

The odd-looking secretary bird is a South African bird of prey.  The reason for this bird’s name is easy to guess because of the tuft of long, stiff feathers that stick out from the back of its head.  The tuffs resemble the quill pens that old-time secretaries and clerks once carried behind their ears.  The secretary bird has a long neck and very long legs .  it is about four-feet tall and its plumage is gray and black.  It usually prefers to run instead of fly and is the only bird of prey that hunts on foot. 

 

An inhabitant of Africa’s grassy plains, the secretary bird feeds chiefly on snakes, which it kills by stamping on the snake with its strong  feet and biting it with its hooked bill.  In their native home, farmers often tame secretary birds and keep them to kill rats and mice.  Another name for the secretary bird is “serpent eagle.”

 

Photo courtesy:  dkimages

 

What Is A Cassowary?

 

 

 

 

The cassowary is a large, odd-looking bird that lives in the thick forest of Australia and New Guinea.  A fully grown cassowary may be five feet tall and weigh two pounds or more.

 

Like the African relative the ostrich, the cassowary cannot fly.  All that remains of its flight feathers are a few spiny quilts, but it can sprint at speeds of at nearly 40 miles per hour for its long powerful legs, when it danger.

 

A bony helmet on its featherless head  helps it butt through the heavy underbrush.  Tough bristle like feathers that cover it body serve as a form of armor as it crashes headlong the forest.

 

A threatened cassowary can be a dangerous foe.  All three of the toes on each foot are armed with knife-sharp claws which can be a deadly weapon in a flight.  Usually, these shy birds are  heard more often than soon in their dense forest home.  They call by snorting and bellowing.

 

Reference:  Dick Rogers

photo courtesy:  arf