"The Secretary Bird (Sagittarius serpentarius) is among the most architecturally distinctive raptors in the African fauna — the long legs of a terrestrial hunter, the body of an eagle, the black crest of a Victorian filing clerk who has been issued weapons considerably beyond his administrative remit. It hunts on foot, covering up to thirty kilometres in a day. Its primary instrument is its feet: one hundred and ninety-five Newtons delivered in fifteen milliseconds — sufficient, researchers have confirmed, to break small bones and kill a snake instantly. It has been observed hunting along fire lines, timing its movements to wind direction and flame spread. It stamps rather than swoops. It marches rather than soars. The author finds, in this, something he recognises."
The secretary bird had been following the Colonel's morning walks for three weeks.
The Colonel had noted this on the fourth day — "Secretary bird: habitual proximity during morning observation circuit. Possible interest in research methodology" — and had proceeded with his work, which he considered the appropriate response to a bird that appeared, in his assessment, to share his schedule.
What he had not noted was that every time his boots moved through the long grass, the grass yielded small things. Rodents. Lizards. Snakes of modest ambition. The secretary bird, walking three metres behind him with the unhurried focus of a professional engaged in familiar work, caught them.
He had been flushing prey for three weeks.
The bird had been hunting with him for three weeks.
Neither party had formally acknowledged the arrangement.
On the morning of the twenty-third day, the Colonel sat at the camp's edge and watched the bird work.
It moved through the grass with a stride he found, privately, rather fine — upright, measured, the decorated crest moving with each step, the black quill-feathers neither decorative nor accidental. He had looked up the name. The quills behind the head resembled those of a Victorian secretary tucked behind the ear. He found this appropriate. A bird that had chosen to walk rather than fly, to march rather than soar, to cover thirty kilometres a day on foot because the work was on the ground and the ground was where it would be.
A cobra appeared from a tussock at the bird's approach.
The Colonel wrote: Cape cobra. Naja nivea. Raised hood. Full threat display.
The secretary bird assessed this.
Assessment: brief, the Colonel wrote. Under two seconds.
What followed was documented in his notes in real time, which was unusual — the Colonel was not normally a real-time annotator, preferring the considered record to the immediate one. But the speed of it made any other approach inadequate.
Strike deflected — wing raised as shield. Stomp 1. Stomp 2. Positional adjustment. Stomp 3 — decisive. Snake lifted. Tossed. Caught. Swallowed.
He looked at his watch.
Duration: fifty-three seconds.