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Long-lived Wisdom, the Albatross
She has been nesting on tiny Midway Island for decades.
© Dan Rapp – USFWS Pacific Region
This month, we’re celebrating BirdNote’s 20th anniversary. Twenty years is a long time, but we can’t hold a candle to Wisdom the albatross, the world’s oldest-known wild bird who is at least 74 years old.
Here’s to many more years — for BirdNote, and for Wisdom.
BirdNote®
Long-lived Wisdom, the Albatross
Written by Bob Sundstrom
This is BirdNote.
This month, we’re celebrating BirdNote’s 20th anniversary. Twenty years is a long time, but we can’t hold a candle to Wisdom the albatross, the world’s oldest-known wild bird who is at least 74 years old.
[Laysan Albatross call, ML32567]
Back in 1956, pioneering bird biologist Chandler Robbins was fastening ID bands to the legs of Laysan Albatrosses. His work took place on tiny Midway Atoll way out in the Pacific Ocean, where roughly one million albatrosses nest each year.
[Laysan Albatross calls, ML117679]
Little did Chandler suspect that 46 years later, he would encounter one of those same females he had banded previously! In honor of her unprecedented history, another researcher named this long-lived albatross “Wisdom.”
Since then, scientists have been checking in on Wisdom. Over those many decades, Wisdom has raised an estimated 30 or so chicks. And just this past November, she laid her first egg in four years.
[Laysan Albatross calls, ML117679]
It’s not known with certainty how many years an albatross might live. One thing we do know for certain: Wisdom has fans all over the world, rooting for her to return to Midway this Fall.
[Laysan Albatross call, ML32567]
Here’s to many more years — for BirdNote, and for Wisdom.
I’m Ariana Remmel.
[Laysan Albatross call, ML32567]
###
Senior Producer: Mark Bramhill
Producer: Sam Johnson
Managing Editor: Jazzi Johnson
Content Director: Jonese Franklin
Bird sounds provided by The Macaulay Library of Natural Sounds at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Ithaca, New York. Laysan Albatross ML32567 recorded by Chandler Robbins. Laysan Albatross ML117679 recorded by Ted Miller.
BirdNote’s theme was composed and played by Nancy Rumbel and John Kessler.
© 2025 BirdNote February 2025 Narrator: Ariana Remmel
ID# LAAL-02b-2025-02-27 LAAL-02b
References:
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/article/birds-animals-oceans-parents-albatross
NYT story: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/06/science/wisdom-albatross-bird-egg.html
Bird banding age records: https://www.pwrc.usgs.gov/BBL/Bander_Portal/login/Longevity_main.php
Bob Sundstrom
Writer
Ariana Remmel
NarratorSights & Sounds
