Wisdom, The World's Oldest Bird, Lays Egg At 74 Years Old After Finding New Mate

The oldest known wild bird – an albatross named Wisdom – has laid an egg at the ripe old age of 74, after finding a new mate earlier this year.

Wisdom was first identified and banded by biologists after she laid an egg at Midway Atoll in 1956. As albatrosses do not lay eggs before the age of five, the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service now estimates her age to be at least 74 years old.

Every year in November, this population of albatrosses returns to Midway Atoll in the North Pacific Ocean in order to find a mate, following some impressive courtship dancing, of course.

The U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service believe that Wisdom may have laid 50-60 eggs in her lifetime, with as many as 30 becoming fully fledged chicks. Most of these would be with her longstanding mate, Akeakamai, who she partnered up with for an impressive 60 years.

“Each year that Wisdom returns, we learn more about how long seabirds can live and raise chicks,” U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service biologist Dr Beth Flint explained in a statement in 2021. “Her return not only inspires bird lovers everywhere, but helps us better understand how we can protect these graceful seabirds and the habitat they need to survive into the future.”

But in 2021, and the years that followed, Akeakamai failed to return to the nesting spot, having likely passed away. Earlier this year, Wisdom raised hopes that she may mate again, when she was spotted actively courting other birds in March.

“At least 70 years old, we believe Wisdom has had other mates,” Dr Flint added. “Though albatross mate for life, they may find new partners if necessary – for example if they outlive their first mate.”

Wisdom was a little out of season, but having returned to the atoll this November, she was seen interacting with a new mate. Now, the US Fish and Wildlife Service have announced that she has laid an egg at 74 years old.

"She's unique," biologist Jon Plissner told BBC Radio 4's Today program. "We don't know of any others that are even close to her age. The next closest we know of that's here currently [...] are about 45 years old, so it is very rare."

Most eggs are laid at the atoll in early December. The incubation period for albatross eggs is 64-65 days, with most new chicks hatching in January/February of the following year. It could be a tense wait, but the chick is expected to hatch, or at least to have good odds of doing so.

"It should," Plissner added. "We have about 70 or 80 percent of our eggs that are laid here hatch every year. Then about 50 percent or so of those will actually survive to fledge, and leave Midway."

A late friend of mine was serving on a USAF aerial refueling detachment on Midway Island in the late 50’s. To pass the time they’d set snares behind one of the hangers to catch albatrosses. 2 airman would hold the bird on its back with it’s wings spread while the third would spray paint the USAF insignia on the underside of the wings. Imagine the Navy air controllers watching all those USAF ‘birds’ in the pattern!

He finally got busted and dragged before a Navy captain. Somehow he managed not to get sent to Greenland.

Albatrosses are nearly sacred animals to sailors.

From BRAVE AI:

The Rime of Ancient Mariner
Overview
The Rime of the Ancient Mariner is a long narrative poem by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, written in 1797-1798 and published in 1798. It is considered one of the greatest poems in the English language and a masterpiece of Romantic literature. The poem tells the story of an ancient mariner who stops a wedding guest and recounts his haunting and supernatural tale of a voyage to the South Pole, where he and his crew encounter strange and terrifying events.

Plot Summary

The poem begins with the ancient mariner stopping a wedding guest and detaining him to tell his story. The mariner recounts how his ship sailed southward with a good wind and fair weather, till it reached the line. There, a tremendous storm blew the ship even further to the South Pole, where the crew encountered mist, snow, cold, and giant glaciers.

An albatross, a large seabird, appears, and the sailors greet it as a good omen. However, the mariner, for reasons unexplained, shoots and kills the bird with his crossbow. The crew is furious with the mariner, believing the albatross was responsible for the fair breeze and that its death has brought a curse. After the bird’s death, the wind ceases, and the ship becomes trapped on a vast, calm sea.

As the crew becomes increasingly thirsty, some sailors dream that an angered Spirit has followed them from the pole. The crew hangs the albatross around the mariner’s neck as a symbol of their curse. In this terrible calm, the men on the ship grow so thirsty that they cannot even speak. When the mariner sees what he believes is a ship approaching, he must bite his arm and drink his own blood to alert the crew.

The ghostly ship, which sails without wind, approaches, and on its deck, Death and Life-in-Death gamble with dice for the lives of the sailors and the mariner. After Life-in-Death wins the soul of the mariner, the sailors begin to die of thirst, falling to the deck one by one, each staring at the mariner in reproach. Surrounded by the dead sailors and cursed by their gaze, the mariner tries to turn his eyes to heaven to pray, but fails.

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