Oldest wild bird

The oldest recorded age for a bird in the wild is at least 74 years for a female Laysan albatross, or mōlī (Phoebastria immutabilis), named Wisdom. She was first ringed in 1956 – conservatively aged then at five years old – at the Midway Atoll National Wildlife Refuge in the Pacific Ocean, and has returned most years since, being most recently spotted there in late 2024. Wisdom is estimated to have laid around 40 eggs and raised at least 30 chicks over her lifetime. Indeed, despite her age, she is still producing offspring: she laid her latest egg in December 2024, making her the oldest breeding seabird too.

Laysan albatrosses spend much of their life on the wing out at sea, and normally live up to 40 years of age. They return to land to breed, on average every other year, around November.

The US ornithologist Chandler Robbins, who died in 2017 aged 98, first placed an aluminium band (#Z333) around Wisdom’s ankle in 1956. Forty-six years later, Robbins spotted Wisdom among thousands of birds near the same nesting area and attached a new band.

Albatrosses typically mate for life, but have been known to re-pair if a partner dies. Wisdom had maintained the same partner, known as "Akeakamai", since 2006, but he did not make an appearance in 2021 or 2022. The egg laid in 2024 was the result of Wisdom's partnership with a new male albatross.

In March 2023, one of Wisdom's grown-up male offspring (N333) was seen roosting an egg, which went on to hatch; this is her second recorded "grand-chick"; another in the previous breeding season was sadly found to have died in May 2022.