By AFP - Agence France Presse
The world's oldest wild bird is expecting again at the age of 74
Parenthood can be tough, even for the youngest and most energetic, but an elderly albatross is about to go through it all again - at the ripe (and record-breaking) age of 74.
Wisdom, a Laysan albatross, is one of the millions of huge seabirds that return to Midway Atoll, near Hawaii, every year to nest.
Wildlife experts claim that she has done this for decades with the same partner - the birds are known to be monogamous - and has laid more than 50 eggs in her lifetime.
But her partner hasn't been seen for years, and Wisdom has recently started flirting with other males.
On this year's visit, she produced an egg that her new partner is helping to incubate.
“We're optimistic that the egg will hatch,” said Jonathan Plissner, supervising wildlife biologist at Midway Atoll National Wildlife Refuge.
Photographs and videos provided by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service show the proud parents-to-be talking to the egg before the male sits on it.
Wisdom was identified and tagged when she laid her first egg at the refuge in 1956 when she would have been at least five years old - the point at which Laysan albatrosses reach sexual maturity.
This means that, by the end of the month, Wisdom will be at least 74 years old and could be several years older, making her the oldest known wild bird in the world.
Laysan albatrosses can have a wingspan of up to 80 inches (203 centimeters) and travel more than 930 miles (1,500 kilometers) to look for food.
The average lifespan of birds varies greatly according to the species. Small birds usually live only two or three years, while seabirds - including albatrosses and penguins - sometimes reach 40 or 50 years. Parrots, unique among birds, can outlive humans, with a cockatoo supposedly reaching over 100 years.
There are more than a dozen species of albatross found in the Southern Hemisphere and the North Pacific Ocean.
The birds have long appeared in stories about life at sea, most notably in Samuel Taylor Coleridge's “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner,” in which a sailor brings misfortune to his ship by killing one of the birds, whose corpse is then hung around his neck.
hg/bbk
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