A small piece of technology carried on the back of a Secretarybird has quietly set a new record.
By the end of July 2026, Nico, a male Secretarybird fitted with a GPS tracking device near Randfontein, Gauteng, on 4 October 2021, had been tracked for 1761 days. This makes him the longest-tracked bird in the history of BirdLife South Africa’s Secretarybird tracking project.
It is the latest milestone in a project that has now followed Secretarybirds across South Africa for more than a decade. To date, tracking devices have been fitted to 24 young Secretarybirds, with viable data received from 19 of them. Together, these birds have contributed an extraordinary 12 663 tracking days, creating what we believe to be the largest movement dataset of its kind for the species.
Before Nico claimed the record, it belonged to another remarkable bird.
Taemane, a young male fitted with a tracking device at his nest near Warden in the Free State on 5 April 2013, transmitted for 1716 days, until his device finally stopped working on 16 December 2017. During those four-and-a-half years, he undertook an extraordinary journey, travelling from the Free State all the way to the KwaZulu-Natal coast and back again before eventually settling near Memel in the Free State. More importantly, Taemane went on to breed there, becoming the first tracked bird in the project for which we were able to document breeding activity.
Another male, Ekapa, was fitted with a tracker near Kimberley on 22 October 2020. His device continued transmitting for 1685 days, until 3 June 2025. During that time we were able to follow two of his breeding attempts, which provided another rare window into how an adult Secretarybird uses the landscape while breeding.
Now Nico is adding another chapter. After being tracked from a young bird through dispersal and into adulthood, he bred successfully for the first time during the latest breeding season. His tracker is still functioning and is once again showing movements that may indicate breeding activity.
This is where the value of these exceptionally long tracking histories becomes particularly important. Although tracking young Secretarybirds teaches us an enormous amount about dispersal, habitat use and the movements birds make before establishing territories, we still know comparatively little about how breeding adults use the landscape. Only a handful of the birds tracked during the project have continued transmitting long enough for us to follow them into breeding.
Understanding those movements is critical. Where do breeding adults forage relative to their nests? How large an area do they use while raising chicks? Which habitats do they depend on, and how frequently do their movements bring them into contact with roads, power lines, renewable energy developments and other infrastructure?
Answering these questions will enable us to move beyond simply knowing where Secretarybirds occur and towards understanding the landscapes they require to breed successfully. That information can, in turn, help us develop more effective and scientifically defensible mitigation measures when developments are proposed within Secretarybird breeding areas.
Every additional day transmitted by Nico therefore adds another piece to that puzzle. With another breeding season approaching, we hope to deploy additional tracking devices on adult Secretarybirds and continue building this unique long-term dataset. Following these birds over multiple breeding attempts will give us a much clearer picture of how adults use the landscape during this critical stage of their lives.
Taemane, Ekapa and now Nico have demonstrated just how valuable the picture they have given us is. After 12 663 tracking days, we have learnt an extraordinary amount about the lives of Secretarybirds. Yet some of the most important questions are only now beginning to come within reach.
