The 2025/26 Secretarybird breeding season turned out to be the busiest recorded by the Secretarybird Project in recent years. Monitoring continued from the first active nests during winter 2025 through to some of the final breeding attempts during the first few months of 2026.
Over the course of the season, 70 known nest sites were surveyed during 110 individual visits. Active breeding was recorded at 33 sites, representing almost half of the sites surveyed. At nests where clutch sizes could be determined, 48 eggs were recorded from 20 nests. These produced at least 34 hatchlings, although not all survived through the nestling period.
Ringing formed an important part of the monitoring work. Twenty-seven nestlings from 15 nests were ringed during the season, allowing each bird to be individually identified should it be encountered again later in life. Morphological measurements and biological samples were also collected from birds during ringing visits as part of the broader research programme.
By the end of the season, 16 nests were confirmed to have successfully produced at least 25 fledglings. Five breeding attempts were known to have failed, while the outcomes of some nests could not be confirmed. As is often the case with Secretarybirds, determining whether a nest has been successful sometimes requires several visits spread over several months.
The monitoring also provided another useful demonstration of how prolonged the Secretarybird breeding season can be. Some of the earliest nests monitored during 2025 were already active during May and June, whereas other pairs only started breeding much later in the year. Across the nests for which breeding timing could be estimated, incubation and nestling periods extended from autumn 2025 through to the first few months of 2026. This variation means that nests at very different stages can be encountered at the same time, with one pair perhaps still incubating eggs while young from another nest are already close to fledging.
Monitoring for the current breeding season started during July and has increased steadily over the past few months. As of early September, 63 nest sites have already been surveyed during 70 individual visits. Thirteen of these sites have recorded active breeding.
At least nine eggs have been recorded across four nests so far, while 10 other nests have contained a total of at least 19 nestlings. Seven of these nestlings, from four nests, have already been ringed, with several more ringing visits planned during September and the months that follow.
Interestingly, breeding activity also appears to have started earlier this season. By early September, several nests had already progressed to the nestling stage, with seven nestlings already old enough to be ringed. During the previous season, much of the recorded breeding activity only began from late winter into spring, with many pairs starting considerably later in the year. It is still too early to know whether this represents a broader shift in breeding timing or simply reflects the nests detected thus far.
These numbers are still very much a snapshot of the season. Last year’s monitoring showed that new breeding attempts can continue to appear well into spring and summer, and many of the nests currently being monitored have not yet reached an outcome. The number of survey visits will also increase as active nests are revisited to check whether eggs have hatched, ring nestlings once they are old enough, and later determine whether they successfully fledged.
Nest monitoring will therefore remain one of the project’s main fieldwork activities over the coming months. Previously known sites will continue to be checked, while newly reported nests will be added to the national nest database and monitored where possible.
Many of these nests would never be located without information received from landowners, birders, environmental specialists and other members of the public. These reports have become an important part of expanding our knowledge of Secretarybird breeding across South Africa.
If you know of a Secretarybird nest, whether it is currently active or has been used previously, please report the location to BirdLife South Africa’s Secretarybird Project. Even an apparently old or unused nest can be useful, as many pairs return to established nesting areas during subsequent breeding seasons.
