[tn-bird] Unbelieveable Bird Story Off CNN's Webpage
- From: "Troy Ettel" <Troy.Ettel@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <tn-bird@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Thu, 18 Apr 2002 13:34:45 -0500
Oldest bird clocks 5 million miles
April 18, 2002 Posted: 10:41 AM EDT (1441 GMT)
LONDON, England -- One of the
world's oldest living wild birds is
marking its golden jubilee by preparing
to breed again.
The Manx shearwater -- a far-flying
gull-like seabird -- was probably born in
1952 and is thought to have clocked up
about five million miles in the air.
First ringed by ornithologists in 1957, the
bird's journeys were made while migrating
between Britain and South America.
It was re-discovered on April 4 this year in
a colony of several thousand others on
Bardsey, an island off the Lleyn peninsula
in north Wales.
The shearwater had just returned from its
South American wintering grounds and was preparing to breed when it was netted,
as part of the British Trust for Ornithology (BTO) national bird-ringing
scheme.
Graham Appleton, the BTO's fund-raising manager, told CNN it was the fourth
time the bird had been netted and released -- the other occasions being May 22,
1957, July 8, 1961 and April 16, 1977.
Appleton told CNN: "Not only is this bird considerably older than you would
expect, it is still breeding.
"As long as they are still going, they produce young. Birds don't really have
old age!"
He said the estimated huge mileage it has covered is down to it living much of
its
life on the wing -- shearwaters are extremely economical fliers, gliding on
wind currents rather than flapping continuously.
"It comes to land only during the breeding season, when it seeks out an island
where it can dig a burrow," he said.
"It will stay at the colony until the end of the summer and will then head out
back to sea where it travels around southern Atlantic, until next spring."
He said that given its known age and its winter migration cycle which takes in
Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay, it is estimated that the bird has travelled
500,000 miles, or the equivalent of a return trip to the Moon.
Taking feeding flights into account, it has probably covered a total of five
million miles.
British bird expert Chris Mead told Reuters: "The only way you can tell a
bird's age is by ringing it, and we know about all the other birds, so we can
say it is the oldest.
"It would not be uncommon to find birds aged between 15 or 20 years in a colony
of shearwaters, but 50 years is absolutely remarkable," he said.
Manx shearwaters, whose scientific name is Puffinus puffinus, are shy of the
mainland where danger lurks in the form of predators like stoats, rats and
birds of prey, the RSPB said.
The Manx shearwater has a black back and wings with a white belly and at about
14 inches long it is slightly larger than a pigeon.
The oldest wild bird ever found was a royal albatross that nested in New
Zealand and was named Grandma, the Times said. The bird was at least 53 years
old when it went missing.
The previous oldest known wild bird in Britain was also a Manx shearwater,
recorded in 1996 in Northern Ireland aged 41.
According to the Guinness Book of Animal Records, the highest ever reported age
of a bird is an unconfirmed 82 years for a male Siberian white crane called
Wolf which died at the International Crane Centre in Wisconsin, U.S., in 1988.
Experts are convinced that there are more venerable individuals still to be
identified.
Some, particularly in the parrot family, are thought to have hatched at the end
of the 19th century.
Troy Ettel
State Ornithologist
Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency
P.O. Box 40747
Nashville, TN 37204
(615) 781-6653
Troy.Ettel@xxxxxxxxxxx
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