There's so many different species of birds that it's no surprise if you spot a bird you haven't seen before, perhaps you don't got to the wild much often or not exactly a big fan of nature documentary. There's one very interesting and unique bird with a funny name but if you look at it you can see why.
The secretary bird. It does look like your standard secretary, if we were giving people job roles to animals based on how they look, whoever named this animal didn't miss it at all.
They're incredibly good for one specific thing, which is very risky, that's to go pound for pound with a venomous snake like the cobra. They do have other preys and it's quite awkward for me to even use the word prey on a Cobra for goodness sake.
In a usually guaranteed outcome, the cobra will have little to be able to win because it strikes out with the hood of the snake raised and in what is a typical fast moving striking motion for a snake, it can move fast but before the snake even has a chance to begin to move away after the strike, the secretary bird would have already dropped 20 to 30 kilograms of force straight down on to the cobra's head. When we put that into perspective and consideration the total size of the snake, that is a lot of weight to come down on a spot no larger than a 5 cent coin. They create such an impact, that can lead to a crack in the skull of the cobra or high chance of ruptures to the spinal column of the cobra, and it can all happen within the first 2 to 12 seconds of the secretary bird attacking the cobra.
The first time I watched something like that, I felt scared for the bird because I knew how dangerous a cobra is, but after watching a full documentary I now understand to actually feel bad for the cobra instead.
What is really interesting is the combination of how it all happens in a rhythmic sort of way that never stops until the cobra is dead. Everytime the secretary bird makes an attack on the cobra it hits, it steps back from the cobra's body, opens up the wings, the documentary stated that they stretch out to be approximately 3.5 feet across, but that gives the snake the opportunity to strike. However, the secretary bird immediately hits again while the snake is in a position where it can't protect itself too well. It keeps doing this all of the time until the bird kills the cobra. The secretary bird never thinks about using its beak until it's sure the snake is dead.
It's downhill for the snake after the first few kicks and it's feeding time for the bird.
It's almost as if the bird is not even phased by the fact that the cobra is one of the deadliest creatures on the planet, it is just another thing that the secretary bird will step on to move it out of the way to do whatever it is going to do next. They have more courage than us people who happen to be giants compared to them.
I'll share my favorite video that explains even further the strategies.