Secretary Bird Walking through Dry Grass

A secretary bird hunts on foot. It walks through the grass until it flushes a snake or a lizard, then kills it with quick, hard stamps of its feet. Researchers who filmed one trained bird found each kick struck with several times its own body weight, faster than a human blink. Here one strides across dry savanna on long pale legs, its black crest raised, in a secretary bird jigsaw puzzle that is mostly legs and grass.