Wisdom (R), a Laysan albatross at least 74 years old, waits again.
Parenting can be difficult, even for the young and most energetic, but one elderly albatross is about to experience it all again, at the age of 74 (and apparently a record).
Wisdom, a Laysan albatross, is one of millions of enormous seabirds that return to Midway Atoll, near Hawaii, each year to nest.
Wildlife experts say that for decades she did this with the same partner (the birds are known to be monogamous) and had laid more than 50 eggs in her lifetime.
But her partner hasn’t been seen for years and Wisdom recently started flirting with other men.
During this year’s visit, she produced an egg that her new partner is helping her incubate.
“We are optimistic that the egg will hatch,” said Jonathan Plissner, a wildlife biologist at Midway Atoll National Wildlife Refuge.
Photographs and videos provided by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service show the proud expectant parents chatting with their egg before the male sits on it.
Wisdom was identified and tagged when she laid her first egg at the refuge in 1956, when she would have been at least five years old, the time when Laysan albatrosses reach sexual maturity.
This means that by the end of the month, Wisdom will be at least 74 years old and could even be several years beyond that, making it the oldest known wild bird in the world.
Laysan albatrosses can have wingspans of up to 80 inches (203 centimeters) and travel more than 930 miles (1,500 kilometers) to forage for food.
The average lifespan of birds varies greatly between species. Small birds often live only two to three years, while seabirds, including albatrosses and penguins, sometimes reach 40 or 50 years. Parrots, alone among birds, can survive humans, with one cockatoo well outnumbering a hundred.
There are more than a dozen species of albatross, found in the Southern Hemisphere as well as the North Pacific Ocean.
Birds have long featured in stories of life at sea, most notably in Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner,” in which a sailor brings misfortune to his ship by killing one of the birds, whose corpse is then hung around his neck. .
© 2024 AFP
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