Secretary Bird (Sagittarius serpentarius) Fact Sheet: Diet & Feeding

Wide and varied diet

• Just about anything found on the ground
• Grasshoppers, lizards, rats, squirrels, shrews, small rodents and birds, birds’ eggs, chameleons, snakes, and small tortoises

• Kill prey by stamping to death, then swallow it whole after prey is completely immobile.
• Class of prey: anything less than 500 grams. Most swallowed whole - rarely torn up and hidden
• Sometimes swallow grass and small rocks, probably to aid digestion.
• Undigestible material regurgitated as large pellet (up to 4 inches long and 1.5 - 2 inches in diameter) below roosting site.

Brown (1972)
Steyn (1982)
Tarboton (1990)