Longevity Records of North American Birds

Abstract

In 1968, I was amazed to trap a Black-capped Chickadee (Parus atricapillus) I had banded more than 12 years previously.I tried to find in the literature longevity records for wild North American birds, and found this to be exceedingly difficult.Gcoffry Gill published a list in EBBA News (8(10):2, 1945), and this was followed by a "final list" in 1946 (9(3):3-4).In 1963 EBBA News (26:224-225) F. P. Frazier summarized 36 species previously published in The Rig, and Charles H. Blake estimated the extreme age of birds by families (26:223-224).Dr. Rydzewski, editor of The Ring, published a list of longevity records of birds of the world (Ring, $$:147-152, 1962), followed in 1963 (34:177-181) by a list of North American records.Recently in 1973, but not distributed until mid-1974, Dr. Rydzcwski published in The Ring (77:91-96) his latest list on longevity of North American birds.These have been included with additional data when it could be obtained.Bird-Banding, EBBA News, Inland Bird-Banding News, Western Bird Bander, Auk, and Wilson Bulletin, which occasionally publish such records, were searched for the last 20 years.Countless other publications occasionally carry reports of records, so some must have been missed.In the spring of 1972 I published requests for additional data in Bird-Banding and EBBA News, and later in Inland Bird-Banding News, Western Bird Bander, and Ontario Bird Bandig Newsletter.We made a preliminary report at the November 1972 meeting of NEBBA, and asked for further data.In February, 1973 Harvey Farber,