The world’s oldest wild bird has a new grandchick
Get the Popular Science daily newsletter💡 Breakthroughs, discoveries, and DIY tips sent six days a week. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is shining a light on a new member of a famous feathered family—that of the world’s oldest known breeding bird, a Laysan albatross called Wisdom. The agency posted a video on social media featuring a scruffy looking hatchling seemingly yawning as it hangs out in the sand in close contact with a giant bird—presumably one of its parents. The parent occasionally touches the baby bird with its long beak, and the entire sequence is, rather appropriately, accompanied by the sound of Olivia Dean’s So Easy (To Fall In Love). Indeed, it’s hard not to fall in love with the baby bird. “This hatchling, recorded earlier this month on the refuge, belongs to Wisdom’s son born in 2011, easily identified with the red tag labeled ‘N333,’ an offshoot of his mother’s legendary ‘Z333’ tag,” reads the video’s caption. The hatchling’s grandmother is over 70 years old. The seabird was alive during President Eisenhower’s administration …
