Took a little bit of a blogging break over the weekend. Non Birding Bill and I celebrated our ten year wedding anniversary. Always nice to reestablish the pair bond.
I had longevity on the brain on Friday, not only by anticipating the weekend, but because we got some old birds in the nets at Carpenter Nature Center. Normally, we'll get one or two retraps in a session and one of those birds might be a few years old, but this time we got in several older downy woodpeckers. There must have been something in the air:
A downy woodpecker originally banded 5-2-03 as an after second year bird was retrapped 5-30-08!
Another downy woodpecker originally banded on 11-14-03 as an after hatch year bird was retrapped on 12-19-03, 4-28-06 and 5-30-08.
A third downy woodepecker originally banded 11-5-04 and retrapped 5-30-08!
Though our oldest down on Friday was over seven years old and possibly a record for Carpenter, that's not the oldest down woodpecker. According to the Bird Banding Lab, the oldest downy woodpecker on record was eleven years old and eleven month.