How long do birds live?

One might suppose that this question could be answered – indeed it often is answered – by a simple table of ages per species. Any such table is however likely to be very misleading.

A bit of background

Animals vary enormously in their reproductive strategies. Some – such as most fish – provide no care or protection to their offspring, but produce immense numbers of eggs in the hope that a few will survive. (These are known to ecologists as r-selected species.) Others produce only a few offspring but give them care and protection so that a higher proportion of those few manage to survive. (These are known as K-selected species.)

Humans are right at the extreme “K” end of the spectrum. Most humans, at least in the developed world, live long enough to have children.

Birds also tend somewhat towards the “K” end but not so far as humans. Passerines in particular (which include most common garden birds) produce large numbers of offspring, the majority of which do not suvive to adulthood. Great Tits for example produce clutches of 8-12 eggs. If all these survived to reproduce, Europe would be knee-deep in Great Tits within a decade or so. But many die either in the nest or soon after fledging. Many more do not make it through their first winter.

Average age

So what’s this all got to do with ages?

If you calculate the average age of a bird species, the calculation is dominated by the 70% to 80% of birds that die very young. The fact is that most bird species have an average lifespan of just a few months.

Once birds get through their first winter, the mortality rate drops considerably. For passerines, typically 30%-40% of adult birds die each year, with larger species living longer than smaller ones. This means that of those birds which survive their first winter the average age is going to be somewhere around three years: more for crows, less for wrens.

Other birds have better survival rates. For some seabirds, the death rate drops to not much more than 10%, and the average age of those birds which survive their first winter might be nearer to eight or nine years.

Maximum age

When considering highest known ages, a simple list of figures is highly misleading. For humans (at least in the developed world) the highest age known is only a bit more than 1.5 times the average. For birds, the highest age known is likely, at least for well-studied species, to be extremely atypical of the species as a whole – it might be 30 or 40 times the average or even more! (And for less well-studied species, it could be largely a matter of chance whether one happens to come across a very old bird or not.) However, for what it’s worth, I do give some figures below.

Incidentally, captive birds often live to greater ages than wild birds, and the oldest definitely recorded age for a bird is 80 years for a Sulphur-crested Cockatoo at London Zoo.

Breeding age

An arguably more interesting figure, because it actually says something meaningful about the birds, is the age at which a bird first breeds.

For most, if not all, passerines, this is at one year. For non-passerines it is much more variable. It is also one year for birds like pheasants and pigeons. But ducks range from one to four years, while the first-breeding age is three or four years for gulls, and up to six years for some of the larger birds of prey.

Maximum known ages of some species

Here are the maximum known ages, in years, of some bird species, from sources I consider reliable – mostly from Campbell & Lack’s “Dictionary of Birds” (1985). (Some of them may now have been exceeded). As explained above, they are not in any way typical!

Little Grebe	13.1		Skylark	10.1
Manx Shearwater	26.0		Swallow	16.0
Mallard	29.0		Pied Wagtail	9.9
Mute Swan	21.7		Starling	20.0
Sparrowhawk	11.6		Rook	19.9
Kestrel	16.2		Reed Warbler	11.0
Quail	7.6		Goldcrest	7.0
Coot	18.3		Blackbird	20.3
Oystercatcher	36.0		Blue Tit	12.3
Black-headed gull	32.1		Great Tit	15.0
Arctic Tern	33.9		Wren	6.6
Guillemot	32.1		Robin	12.9
Collared Dove	13.7		Dunnock	9.0
Cuckoo	12.9		House Sparrow	12.9
Swift	21.1		Greenfinch	12.6

The following figures for maximum recorded life-span (in years), have also been posted to the group. I’m not sure exactly where they originate from though, and can’t guarantee the accuracy of them, but they mostly look about right. They are a bit out of date though, as some of the figures have already been superseded by those above. (One reason for caution is the peculiar order they are given in! – the table was clearly not assembled by an ornithologist.)

    Blackbird...........10     Hoopoe..........2      Goldfinch...........8
    Blackcap.............5     Jackdaw........14      Pheasant............9
    Bullfinch............8     Jay............18      Canada Goose.......11
    Black Headed Gull...30     Redstart........7      Black Redstart......2
    Chaffinch...........10     Kestrel........16      Wood Pigeon........14
    Tree-Creeper.........7     Kingfisher......4      Greenfinch.........10
    Crossbill............2     Magpie.........15      Rock Pipit..........9
    Collared Dove........3     Mallard........20      Goldcrest...........3
    Rock Dove............6     House Martin....6      Tawny Owl..........16
    Stock Dove...........8     Sand Martin.....7      Herring Gull.......32
    Dunnock..............8     Moorhen........11      Hawfinch............2
    Fieldfare............5     Nuthatch........9      Redwing............19
    Pied Flycatcher......9     Barn Owl.......15      Robin..............11
    Spotted Flycatcher...8     Little Owl.....16      Rook...............20
    Starling............20     Mute Swan......19      Swift..............21
    House Sparrow.......11     Tree Sparrow...10      Swallow............16
    Long Tailed Tit......4     Great Tit......10      Marsh Tit..........10
    Willow Tit...........8     Blue Tit.......10      Coal Tit............5
    Crested Tit..........5     Song Thrush....14      Mistle Thrush......10
    Turnstone...........20     Pied Wagtail....6      Grey Wagtail........3
    Grt Sptd Woodpecker..9     L.S.Woodpecker..4      Green Woodpecker....5
    Wren.................5     Wryneck.........4      Yellowhammer........7