Sagittarius serpentarius

Happy Friday everyone.

Hope that it has been a good week for you all. I happened to be reading about this unique and magnificent bird online and I find the Secretary Bird is most fascinating. This bird deserved to be given a character to a story in any children’s picture book. So I decided to illustrate this character.

This particular bird actually belongs to bird of prey and they can be found in the dry uplands of Africa. The Secretary Bird is the only living bird of prey of terrestrial habits. It has long leg with a slender but powerful body. The bird is 3.9 feet long and has a 6.9 foot wingspread. It also has twenty black crest feathers which make it appear to be carrying quill pens behind its ears,as secretaries once did. It has light grey body, black thighs,flight feathers, and white wing linings.

Interestingly, snakes are the main food of secretary birds. Other favourite foods are lizards, grasshoppers, mice, and birds’ eggs. Secretary birds hunt on foot, in pairs or small groups that keep in contact by hooting. They kill snakes by stamping or flailing them against the ground, sometimes dropping them from aloft.

For this illustration , I came up with a character named Mrs Pekoe. She is the Secretary to Mr Walrus Wilmington, the Office Manager of the Wild Animal Kingdom Company. Today is a very busy day for Mrs Pekoe. Apparently the Manager is interviewing for a new position for his company. Mr Wilmington is hoping to find a replacement for the Business Administrator for the Animal Welfare Department. Slither the snake has just been called to meet the Manager. Slither’s biggest fear is the Secretary Bird and he was shocked when he realised that Mr Wilmington’s secretary is the bird itself sitting at her desk! Slither trembles so hard that he completely forgot all about his interview preparation. Never did he knows that Mrs Pekoe has turned Vegan recently and has no interest in gobbling up the poor snake!