birdsoup

People often wonder how long the birds in their backyard live.  The sad truth is that most birds do not live to see their first birthday.  Youth is a dangerous time for birds.  Lack of food, flying accidents, and predators take their toll.  However, if they do survive the first year their expected life span increases.  On average, the small songbirds at your feeder may live to an age of 5-7 years.  Although the same living species in captivity will live several years longer because they don’t have to worry about finding food or avoiding predators.  

 As a general rule the larger the bird, the longer the life span.  A crow, for example, might live to 15 years of age.  An eagle, 20-25 years.  Parrots, which can live to more than 50 years, may have the longest lifespan.  Often, when someone buys a parrot for a pet, the pet outlives its owner.

 Which reminds me of the story of VanHumbolt’s parrot.  VanHumbolt was a 19^th century German explorer and self promoter who made many trips to South America.  On one trip he was befriended by a small, remote native tribe.  The tribe, which had its own oral language but no written language, gave him a parrot that had learned to speak their language.  When he left their remote village, he took the bird back to Germany with him.

 Ten years later, a fatal disease attacked and killed every member of the small tribe.  The parrot, then, became the only creature on earth that could still speak their language. 

 VanHumbolt was a born promoter.  So he took the bird and went on a grand tour of Europe, displaying the parrot before large audiences that were mesmerized by an exotic bird that could speak a dead language.

 P.T. Barnum would have been proud.