Wisdom with her chick; photo by John Klavitter |
Go to the titles at the top of this page. Click on the one called "Midway Map." See the green box with L10 in it? That's where I live, near the Fish and Wildlife Office...when I'm not flying over the North Pacific Ocean. But my friend Wisdom, she lives near L7. These are the neighborhoods for Laysan Albatross. The green boxes with letter B are for the Black-footed Albatross. 'Course we LAALs are all over Midway Atoll, but these green boxes are the only places where the scientists come every week to see how our chicks are doing. It's called measuring our "reproductive success."
Talk about reproductive success! Wisdom wins da prize! She's 60 years old!...and she's still laying eggs and hatching out babies! Check out da picture; cute chick, yeah? Wisdom is da oldest LAAL on the island...at least from all the Laysan albies that have been banded. Most little chirpy song birds live only a year or two. No wonder she's called Wisdom, living for 60 years. Wisdom's reproductive success has made the news; check out "Oldest known wild bird returns to Midway Atoll to raise chick." She's famous!
My brother's sister-in-law's uncle told me about an albatross down in New Zealand called Grandma. She lived to be 60 years old before she disappeared, so we think she's gone from this world. We never met her, though, cuz we don't fly down there...and Grandma never flew up here.
Anyway, just thought I'd let you know that we're celebrating here on Midway -- congratulations, Wisdom; maika`i!
2 comments:
Who named her Wisdom?
Darcy
Hi Darcy,
That's a good question! The short answer is, "I don't know, but I'll send some emails and try and find out, and then post the info here."
For now, the little bit longer answer is Wisdom was probably named by U.S. Geological Survey scientist Chandler Robbins in 1956 when he banded her. Here's an interesting report--
http://www.usgs.gov/newsroom/article.asp?ID=2722
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