The gull sees farthest who flies highest.
— Richard Bach, Jonathan Livingston Seagull
An aura of mystery surrounds the longevity of wild birds — we can’t just ask a chickadee its age. However, ornithologists have shown that some birds can live surprisingly long lives.
The oldest wild bird known is “Wisdom,” a Laysan albatross that returns annually to breed on Midway Atoll in the Pacific Ocean. She was banded there as a 5-year-old in 1956! Wisdom turns 70 this year, and is still producing chicks.
Birds older than that have been documented, but only in captivity where they are sheltered from the perils of wild living. A cockatoo, Cookie, lived to 83, and a captive common raven survived to 80.
It seems the larger the species, the longer it can live. Cardinals and many other songbirds live for 2 or 3 years on average, while comparatively massive albatrosses, gulls and others can survive far longer.
Gulls (not “seagulls”, despite Bach’s famed protagonist) can be notably long-lived. Several European and Middle Eastern species have been documented to eclipse three decades, and a herring gull survived for 49 years in captivity.
In this country, gulls probably are not as well-studied as across the pond, and less is known of the lifespans of American species.
Enter Chuck Slusarczyk Jr. A longtime Cleveland resident, Slusarczyk (sloo-sar-chik) lives in a gull paradise. At least 19 species have been recorded on Lake Erie.
Gull study is not for the faint of heart. There is a steep learning curve in regard to identification, compounded by different plumages at different ages. Smaller gull species take two years to develop mature plumage, while the largest species take four years. Also, good gull weather often is poor people weather: gale winds and icy temperatures.
Slusarczyk took up gull study with a vengeance long ago, and he is now one of Ohio’s premier experts. A renaissance man, he also is authoritative on aircraft, Great Lakes ships, moths, orchid raising, photography and the history of Cleveland. Following a 28-year career in the aviation industry, Slusarczyk is now employed as a motorcoach operator.
Intellectual curiosity such as Slusarczyk’s is rare, and when he aimed it at gulls he began to make notable finds. He regularly shares sightings of uncommon or rare species, often with helpful commentary on plumages or interesting life history observations.
But — in my opinion — Slusarczyk’s most significant gull find came on Jan. 9 at the mouth of the Cuyahoga River. He noticed a ring-billed gull — Ohio’s most common species — with a silver band on its leg, and he managed to get diagnostic photos of the band’s numbers.
A query to the U.S. Geological Survey’s Bird Banding Laboratory soon produced results. The gull was banded as a chick in Toronto, on June 18, 1992! Nearly 29 years later, the gull from Canada is alive and kicking, enjoying a winter vacation in Cleveland.
This is the oldest-known ring-billed gull, and one of the oldest documented gulls in North America.
Documentation of banded birds by keen-eyed observers such as Slusarczyk offers a glimpse into the potentially long life spans of gulls and other species. And these reports represent a vanishingly small percentage of the species involved. For instance, the total ring-billed gull population is estimated at about 2.5 million birds. There could be a centenarian among their ranks.
Why do gulls live so long? If they make it past the juvenile stage, life expectancy skyrockets. They are large and tough, powerful flyers, resourceful and intelligent, opportunistic feeders and have few effective predators.
Such characteristics are fertile ground for spawning avian Methuselahs.
Naturalist Jim McCormac writes a column for The Dispatch on the first, third and fifth Sundays of the month. He also writes about nature at www.jimmccormac.blogspot.com.
The Link LonkMarch 21, 2021 at 06:25PM
https://www.dispatch.com/story/lifestyle/home-garden/2021/03/21/nature-documenting-age-wild-birds-not-easy-task/4698900001/
Nature: Documenting the age of birds in the wild is not an easy task - The Columbus Dispatch
https://news.google.com/search?q=easy&hl=en-US&gl=US&ceid=US:en
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