At 08:37 PM 12/15/98 -0600, Eugene Kridler wrote:
>Some chit chat and getting back to birds and away from the Kennewick Man
>for a little while. Do you know that Black Brant can live up to 28 years
>6 months? Caspian Tern to 29 years 6 months,

Really? Not 7 months in at least one of these cases? :)

OK, I'm kidding, because longetivity records are just that, RECORDS.
For all we know they can live to 128 years and 129 months...

A question, though, has anyone (not here, I mean academically which
could also mean here, of course) worked out the longetivity records
vs. banded birds/recovered at other ages to determine a statistically
acceptable higher limit on age for such species? I'd think that given
enough banding data one would end up with a standard distribution that
could at least assign probabilities of older birds than those known to
have been recovered being banded yet not recovered.

(that's convoluted, but hopefully some will understand).




- Don Baccus, Portland OR <dhogaza at pacifier.com>
Nature photos, on-line guides, and other goodies at
http://donb.photo.net