9 March 2011 She's at least 60 years old, flies some 50,000 miles a year, has had almost three dozen kids - and now she's got another one. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service reports that Wisdom, a Laysan albatross whom they describe as the Northern Hemisphere's oldest wild bird, is rearing another chick on Midway Atoll in the Northern Pacific. "To know that she can still successfully raise young at age 60-plus, that is beyond words," Bruce Peterjohn, the chief of the North American Bird Banding Program, said in a press release. Biologist John Klavitter, deputy manager of the Midway Atoll National Wildlife Refuge, spotted and photographed Wisdom on the atoll in February, according to a report from the U.S. Geological Survey. The bird was first identified and banded by a USGS researcher in 1956 when she was incubating an egg, according to the USGS. As the Laysan albatross can't breed before age 5 - and spends much of its life before that at sea - scientists estimate Wisdom is at least 60 years old. She may be even older, though, as most Laysan albatrosses don't breed until age 8 or 9 after an extended courtship, according to the USGS. The Laysan albatross mates for life. No word on whether a 60-year-old Mr. Wisdom is somewhere on Midway or whether Wisdom is charting new skies in that area too. =================NOTES TO SUBSCRIBER===================== The TN-Bird Net requires you to SIGN YOUR MESSAGE with first and last name, CITY (TOWN) and state abbreviation. You are also required to list the COUNTY in which the birds you report were seen. The actual DATE OF OBSERVATION should appear in the first paragraph. _____________________________________________________________ To post to this mailing list, simply send email to: tn-bird@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx _____________________________________________________________ To unsubscribe, send email to: tn-bird-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx with 'unsubscribe' in the Subject field. ______________________________________________________________ TN-Bird Net is owned by the Tennessee Ornithological Society Neither the society(TOS) nor its moderator(s) endorse the views or opinions expressed by the members of this discussion group. Moderator: Wallace Coffey, Bristol, TN wallace@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx ------------------------------ Assistant Moderator Andy Jones Cleveland, OH ------------------------------- Assistant Moderator Dave Worley Rosedale, VA -------------------------------- Assistant Moderator Chris O'Bryan Clarksville, TN __________________________________________________________ Visit the Tennessee Ornithological Society web site at http://www.tnbirds.org * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * ARCHIVES TN-Bird Net Archives at //www.freelists.org/archives/tn-bird/ MAP RESOURCES Tenn.Counties Map at http://www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/states/tennessee3.gif Aerial photos to complement google maps http://local.live.com _____________________________________________________________