11-year-old chickadee

"I think it has a lot of luck and a lot of skill," said Michael North, a veteran licensed bird bander who captured the aged but still frisky bird in a large net near his home east of Pillager, in central Minnesota, twice this month. "It's probably a dominant bird, and is getting access to the best resources. It's a numbers game, too. Just by chance some birds are going to live longer than others."

Thursday was the sixth time North has held the same bird since he first placed a small ID band on its leg in May 2002, when he estimated it was two years old. He hadn't seen it since January 2010, nearly two years ago, but when it showed up this month, it had outlived the previously-oldest black-capped chickadee in U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) records. That bird was last seen in Massachusetts in 1980, when it was 11 years and two months old. The Pillager chickadee was, as of Thursday, 11 years and six months old.

Additional details at the StarTribune.  I frankly had no idea these little birds lived that long.  You learn something every day.


Photo credit Michael North.