Old birds
Posted: Monday 31 January, 2011
When Peter was down ringing birds last week, one of the things I was curious about was how long garden birds lived. He told us that many won't survice their first year, but some do live a surprisingly long time. I received this email from him a couple of days ago. Like me, you might find it surprising:
"You did ask how long some of the birds could live for so I have checked the BTO website and these are the longevity records from BTO ringing for the species that I caught yesterday:
Blackbird..............14yrs 2mo 1 day
Blue tit.................9yrs 9mo 2 days
Brambling.............8yrs 7mo 16days
Chaffinch.............11yrs 7mo 21days
Coal tit.................8yrs 9mo 26days
Dunnock..............11yrs 3mo 7days
Great tit...............13yrs 11mo 5days
House sparrow.....12yrs 12days
Robin...................8yrs 4mo 30days
Starling................17yrs 7mo 25days"
Pretty remarkable, yes?
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Cath Livingstone
Monday 31 January, 2011 at 9:31pm
Wow! I had no idea they could live that long in the wild. Makes me wonder how old my garden regulars are.