BS: Ancient Brit bird still breeding, flying

Subject: Ancient Brit bird still breeding, flying
From: The Pooka
Date: 18 Apr 02 - 11:00 PM

I love this cnn.com story, and invite any & all analysis, analogy, anthropomorphic nationalistic commentary , etc., from either side of The Pond. (Hey, times are rough in this ol' world; we need a nice story like this.)

Click here

Subject: RE: BS: Ancient Brit bird still breeding, flying
From: Troll
Date: 18 Apr 02 - 11:48 PM

So it would appear that the secret to longevity is an active life in the outdoors (preferably arount water) and a diet that it heavily weighted toward fish.

troll

Subject: RE: BS: Ancient Brit bird still breeding, flying
From: The Pooka
Date: 18 Apr 02 - 11:54 PM

And gliding with the wind instead of flap-flapping around too much. And, 90% of the time at least, breeding in Britain. -- Puffinus Puffinus

Subject: RE: BS: Ancient Brit bird still breeding, flying
From: Troll
Date: 19 Apr 02 - 12:56 AM

"Breeding Britain" eh?
Dunno if it'd be worth it then.

troll

Subject: RE: BS: Ancient Brit bird still breeding, flying
From: GUEST,greg stephens
Date: 19 Apr 02 - 07:23 AM

next time we read a "who discovered america article"..columbus, vikings, ancient egyptians, irish saints on millstones, phoenicians etc, let us remember, with a little humility, these little birds

Subject: RE: BS: Ancient Brit bird still breeding, flying
From: catspaw49
Date: 19 Apr 02 - 07:43 AM

So the little bird was about to breed when it was netted.............uh,huh..........Strikes me as the worst form of coitus interuptus.

I guess you all have the moral of the story about right. Go with the flow, eat fresh healthy food, travel at your leisure, and throw the occasional fuck...........Sounds like a program to me. Is there an application or something I need to fill out?

Spaw

Subject: RE: BS: Ancient Brit bird still breeding, flying
From: Nigel Parsons
Date: 19 Apr 02 - 08:00 AM

Do I take it that the BS in this title refers to Bird's, not Bull's ?

Subject: RE: BS: Ancient Brit bird still breeding, flying
From: catspaw49
Date: 19 Apr 02 - 08:04 AM

I suppose you can take any kind of shit you want Nigel.....Have at it!

Spaw

Subject: RE: BS: Ancient Brit bird still breeding, flying
From: The Pooka
Date: 19 Apr 02 - 08:10 AM

Nigel, no, that threadcode would be *BG* I believe. / (Coincidentally, one of my cinematic heroes) -

Cheerio,
-- Col. Bat Guano

Subject: RE: BS: Ancient Brit bird still breeding, flying
From: The Pooka
Date: 19 Apr 02 - 08:39 AM

Troll, ahh but it's not merely British. It's *Manx* (and with a nice tail even, unlike the kittiecats of said lineage); and *Welsh*! This is a noble bird. OK now, comeallye bold BritKittie'Cats: who's been to this "...Bardsey, an island off the Lleyn peninsula in north Wales"? (And, were the rocks very slippery?)

"...Appleton told CNN: 'Not only is this bird considerably older than you would expect, it is still breeding.'" See there? It might be a Forum member.

"...'It comes to land only during the breeding season, when it seeks out an island where it can dig a burrow,' he said." By God, it IS a Mudcatter! This calls for a new shanty group. I got it: Manx Shearwater Survival.

"The oldest wild bird ever found was a royal albatross..." One could analogize to the Windsors here...but No, not now, t'aint fittin'; sorry. Anyway they're popular again, right?

"...The previous oldest known wild bird in Britain was also a Manx shearwater, recorded in 1996 in Northern Ireland aged 41." Yes; I believe he now sits (roosts?) on the NI Assembly. North Antrim constituency. DUP I think. :)

Troll, why am *I* trying to live up to *your* name here? Better stick to my own & go Invisible. Quick. :)

Subject: RE: BS: Ancient Brit bird still breeding, flying
From: Mrrzy
Date: 19 Apr 02 - 09:02 AM

I like knowing that like trees, dinosaurs live and grow forever - unless something kills them. Impressive!

Subject: RE: BS: Ancient Brit bird still breeding, flying
From: GUEST,Undead Parrot
Date: 19 Apr 02 - 09:16 AM

>British bird expert Chris Mead told Reuters: "The only way you can tell a bird's age is by ringing it".

If you want to ask a bird her age you're better off ringing her because if you ask her face to face she might give you a clip on the ear.

I'm amazed that this thread has already been going for several hours without someone pointing out that the Isle of Man is part of the great Celtic empire. So America was discovered by a Gaelic seafarer after all. Sort of.

Subject: RE: BS: Ancient Brit bird still breeding, flying
From: Amos
Date: 19 Apr 02 - 10:21 AM

The notion that captures my fancy is this graceful bird flying a distance equivalent to the Moon and back. Obviously part of the moral is "Go far and keep on going".

A

Subject: RE: BS: Ancient Brit bird still breeding, flying
From: MMario
Date: 19 Apr 02 - 10:30 AM

But that is only counting the migrations - the estimated figure including feeding trips is 10 times that !

Subject: RE: BS: Ancient Brit bird still breeding, flying
From: Fortunato
Date: 19 Apr 02 - 10:55 AM

Pooka, your story and the subsequent comments cheered me up a bit. The news has been so awful lately I've been skipping it entirely. Consequently I miss the good stuff as well. Thanks.

Fortunato

Subject: RE: BS: Ancient Brit bird still breeding, flying
From: SharonA
Date: 19 Apr 02 - 11:16 AM

One of these days, that article is going to disappear from the CNN website, so I'll paste it here for future reference:


Oldest bird clocks 5 million miles

April 18, 2002 Posted: 10:41 AM EDT (1441 GMT)

Caption: Up to 90 percent of the world's Manx shearwater population breed in Britain  

LONDON, England -- One of the world's oldest living wild birds is marking its golden jubilee by preparing to breed again. The Manx shearwater -- a far-flying gull-like seabird -- was probably born in 1952 and is thought to have clocked up about five million miles in the air.

First ringed by ornithologists in 1957, the bird's journeys were made while migrating between Britain and South America. It was re-discovered on April 4 this year in a colony of several thousand others on Bardsey, an island off the Lleyn peninsula in north Wales.

The shearwater had just returned from its South American wintering grounds and was preparing to breed when it was netted, as part of the British Trust for Ornithology (BTO) national bird-ringing scheme. Graham Appleton, the BTO's fund-raising manager, told CNN it was the fourth time the bird had been netted and released -- the other occasions being May 22, 1957, July 8, 1961 and April 16, 1977.

Appleton told CNN: "Not only is this bird considerably older than you would expect, it is still breeding. As long as they are still going, they produce young. Birds don't really have old age!"

He said the estimated huge mileage it has covered is down to it living much of its life on the wing -- shearwaters are extremely economical fliers, gliding on wind currents rather than flapping continuously. "It comes to land only during the breeding season, when it seeks out an island where it can dig a burrow," he said. "It will stay at the colony until the end of the summer and will then head out back to sea where it travels around southern Atlantic, until next spring."

He said that given its known age and its winter migration cycle which takes in Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay, it is estimated that the bird has travelled 500,000 miles, or the equivalent of a return trip to the Moon. Taking feeding flights into account, it has probably covered a total of five million miles.

British bird expert Chris Mead told Reuters: "The only way you can tell a bird's age is by ringing it, and we know about all the other birds, so we can say it is the oldest. It would not be uncommon to find birds aged between 15 or 20 years in a colony of shearwaters, but 50 years is absolutely remarkable," he said.

Manx shearwaters, whose scientific name is Puffinus puffinus, are shy of the mainland where danger lurks in the form of predators like stoats, rats and birds of prey, the RSPB said. The Manx shearwater has a black back and wings with a white belly and at about 14 inches long it is slightly larger than a pigeon.

The oldest wild bird ever found was a royal albatross that nested in New Zealand and was named Grandma, the Times said. The bird was at least 53 years old when it went missing. The previous oldest known wild bird in Britain was also a Manx shearwater, recorded in 1996 in Northern Ireland aged 41.

According to the Guinness Book of Animal Records, the highest ever reported age of a bird is an unconfirmed 82 years for a male Siberian white crane called Wolf which died at the International Crane Centre in Wisconsin, U.S., in 1988. Experts are convinced that there are more venerable individuals still to be identified. Some, particularly in the parrot family, are thought to have hatched at the end of the 19th century.

Subject: RE: BS: Ancient Brit bird still breeding, flying
From: SINSULL
Date: 19 Apr 02 - 12:22 PM

Poor thing! Fifty and still making babies. I guess not having college tuitions to deal with makes a difference.

Subject: RE: BS: Ancient Brit bird still breeding, flying
From: Celtic Soul
Date: 19 Apr 02 - 08:54 PM

"The shearwater had just returned from its South American wintering grounds and was preparing to breed when it was netted, as part of the British Trust for Ornithology (BTO) national bird-ringing scheme".

Jeez! Ya think maybe they coulda waited for it to be done? At least wait until the eyes glaze over. ;D

Subject: RE: BS: Ancient Brit bird still breeding, flying
From: catspaw49
Date: 19 Apr 02 - 09:17 PM

Just out of curiosity Celtic Soul, do you ever read the rest of the thread?

Spaw

Subject: RE: BS: Ancient Brit bird still breeding, flying
From: Celtic Soul
Date: 20 Apr 02 - 12:04 AM

Sometimes yes, sometimes no, 'Spaw. When a thread starts out on first appearance for me as having many many replies, likely as not the answer is no (some of these show up for me as being more than 100 posts the first time I see them).

I don't know about anyone else, but I don't have the time in my day to read it all (not even all of the posts to those threads in which I am very interested), so yes, I skim...sometimes I skim heavily depending on my time and the amount of posts. Sometimes I post answers to questions not knowing if it is redundant, but I post anyway in the hopes that (if it is not something previously posted) it might be of some use. I work a full time day-job, my band is fairly busy performing, and I am raising a child, so I hope you'll all forgive me for at times posting without having read the entirety of the responses. If this is a problem, however, I will try to stay out of the thread unless I have time to read the majority if not all.

...in this particular case, however, the answer is yes, I read the whole thread and I read the article that the original poster linked to. Did I miss something?

Subject: RE: BS: Ancient Brit bird still breeding, flying
From: GUEST,greg stephens
Date: 20 Apr 02 - 09:55 AM

interesting juxtaposition, this thread and the death of Thor Heyerdal (and if someone has said this already, apologies. (Like Celtic Soul, I occasionally miss a good point someone has made 20 messages back).

Subject: RE: BS: Ancient Brit bird still breeding, flying
From: The Pooka
Date: 20 Apr 02 - 11:55 AM

Fortunato, you're most welcome. I liked the story for the same reasons. Well, plus, I like birds anyway.

Guest Undead Parrot -- O thou immortal feathered Anglo-Transylvanian punster -- I "ringed" my "bird" 25 years ago, still *I'll* never tell her age.

Sharon A., thank *you*!! See now, I never thought of that. Still newbie here, despite my pretensions. Very kind of you to post the full article.

Amos: yes, it's lovely, the Fifty-Year Flight of the Shearwater, spatially comparable to the translunar round-trip. / Good thing he didn't hit any ol' continuum-warping wormholes though, right, A? Not nearly as graceful..."Rawwwk! Isle of Man, we've got a Problem..." :)

Mrrzy: *dinosaurs*, eh? Oh-ho! Now we *are* getting scientific, here. Maybe we'll get a debate going on that theory. There are still some holdouts, I think. (Thread-drift Alert!)

Mr. 'Spaw - hi, how ya doin'? Been missin' ya. Say, have you posted anything lately? :)

Subject: RE: BS: Ancient Brit bird still breeding, flying
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 20 Apr 02 - 02:01 PM

And of course we don't know how old this bird was when originally banded!

Dave Oesterreich