RE: Longevity of Australian passerines

["Philip Veerman" <>]

Denis mentioned me in this message. To which I can only add 3 things. That I am well aware of these issues, well aware that Steve Wilson's (and others with him) very valuable long term banding efforts in the ACT were I believe significant early contributors to these discoveries. Also that many Australian birds live very different lifestyles to those of the northern hemisphere. When I did a post graduate unit "Wildlife Survey" at UC in 1988 we did a detailed review of a paper by Steve Wilson on that banding effort. Whilst there was a lot to comment on the actual paper as a piece of technical writing, what I recall as important from the discoveries of the work are that it seemed to have its origin in wishing to track movements of migrating birds. However in the final wash, vastly more important information came out about the resident small species such as Brown Thornbills and White-browed Scrubwrens and about how surprisingly long they lived and how closely tied they were to their home territory. The third thing also from Canberra (Carrick I think) is the one very long lived female Magpie. There could have been other older birds since then, that is just the well known one at the last I knew.  

 

Philip

 

-----Original Message-----
From: Denis Wilson [
Sent: Wednesday, 23 January 2013 2:43 PM
To: COG bird discussions
Subject: Longevity of Australian passerines

Further to Erika Roper's link to Scientific
American re Citizen Science, I followed a few links, and came across this story
"The Oldest Northern Shrike in North America."
http://ebird.org/content/wi/news/the-oldest-northern-shrike-in-north-america

What immediately attracted my attention was the age "record":
"at least 8.5 years old and the oldest Northern Shrike ever known in North
America."

What - 8.5 years is a "record"?

This confirms
something I vividly remember my father, Steve Wilson talking about with his
American friend and colleague, Don Lamm - namely that the small Australian
passerines such as Brown Thornbills and White-browed Scrubwrens easily outlive
the "normal lifespans" of many Northern Hemisphere birds.

I hope that
Banders such as Mark Clayton or Anthony Overs, or other COG members such as
Philip Veerman, who keep up with the Literature, might be able to provide more
details on longevity of small Australian passerines. But from memory, many of
the birds we banded at New Chums Road, exceeded 12 years, and no doubt there are
other heroic examples which have gone closer to 18 years. We all know stories of
captive Cockatoos living 60 years or more - but they might not be representative
of wild birds (and they are not Passerines).

I recall the theory for this
was along the lines that our small birds did not have to undertake stressful
migrations (either across to Mexico, or across the Mediterranean - to Africa, in
the case of European migratory species). Whereas a "Scrubbie" once it survived
its first year, and established a territory, more or less knew all about the
threats which would face it for the rest of its life, except for catastrophic
events such as severe bushfires which might totally destroy its
habitat.

As Dad used express it, once and "Old Scrubbie" woke up every
morning, it knew how and where to find its Breakfast. That's more or less all it
needed to know.

Anyway, I found the article interesting - hope others do
too.
 
Denis Wilson

"The
Nature of Robertson"
www.peonyden.blogspot.com.au