|
Every bird is different, but did you know that one robin lived
14 years? A Blue Jay lived 18 years. One Mallard lived 28 years,
longer than the oldest wild Golden Eagle, which lived 25 years.
The oldest living wild bird on this list was an Arctic Tern, in
spite of the fact that Arctic Terns have the longest migration of
any birds in the world, flying from the Arctic to Antarctic, and
back, each year!
The maximum known age for some other species, in years:
---------------------------------------------------------
| Arctic Tern -34 |
House Wren - 7 |
| Atlantic Puffin - 21 |
Long-eared Owl - 28 |
| Barn Swallow - 16 |
Mourning Dove - 19 |
|
Black-and-white Warbler - 11 |
Mute Swan - 22 |
| Black-capped Chickadee - 12 |
Northern Cardinal - 16 |
| Black Vulture - 11 |
Northern Fulmer - 23 |
|
Bristle-thighed Curlew - 24 |
Northern Gannet - 25 |
|
Brown-headed Cowbird - 16 |
Osprey - 32 |
| Brown Pelican - 31 |
Peregrine Falcon - 14 |
| Canada Goose - 23 |
Red-bellied Woodpecker - 20 |
| Common Barn Owl - 18 |
Red-throated Loon - 23 |
| Common Eider - 23
|
Red-winged Blackbird - 16 |
| Common Grackle - 20 |
Ruby-throated Hummingbird - 6 |
| Dark-eyed Junco - 11 |
Trumpeter Swan - 24 |
| Double-crested Cormorant - 23
|
Warbling Vireo - 13 |
| European Starling - 20
|
White-breasted Nuthatch - 10 |
| Golden Eagle - 25 |
White-crowned Sparrow - 13 |
| Grasshopper Sparrow - 7 |
Herring Gull - 32 |
| Gray Catbird - 11
|
House Sparrow - 13 |
| Great Crested Flycatcher - 14 |
|
Reference: The Bird Almanac by David Bird (1999, Firefly Books).
What human-related hazards do birds face?
Annual human-related mortality of birds
----------------------------------------------------
House cats: 500,000,000 *
Hunting: 120,000,000
Window kills: 80,000,000
Road kills: 57,000,000
Poisoning: 3,500,000
Pest control: 2,000,000
Television towers: 1,200,000
Miscellaneous: 7,000,000 (combined)
* assuming each house cat kills 5 birds per year, which is probably
a very low rate; the actual rate may be much higher.
Reference: The Bird Almanac by David Bird (1999, Firefly Books).
(Most of these birds have fairly high reproductive rates.)
Reference: The Life of Birds, volume 1 by J. Dorst (1974, Columbia
University Press).
|
