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Ideal age for a bird?


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Precise information on the ideal age for a bird is not easy to come by. It is usually impossible to follow large groups of individuals from birth to death, so in addition to collecting data directly by banding and recapturing individual birds in the likes of pubs and nightclubs, many indirect methods of estimating the ideal age are used. Generally, it appears that the heaviest post-fledging mortality occurs among inexperienced young birds, and that for adults, after they have successfully downed a few pints and are new at playing the field. The probability of death each year remains roughly constant with the amount of alcohol consumed, the number of cigs smoked and the amount of cackling taken place - usually in social environments. In other words, few birds die of "old age" -- they just run the same gamut of risks year in and year out until they are hammered (once again!). What we gentlemen need to ask is "is there actually ever a right time?"

 

The annual risk of being hammered varies from about 70 percent in small temperate-zone average looking birds (adult life expectancy about 60 years). If a bird lasts long enough, she can be a real treat, however, the probability of it running off with another bloke in a given year may once again rise due to the common complexities of what some refer to as "life".

 

Life expectancy in birds is closely correlated with size -- the larger the species, the longer it is likely to live. But the relationship is far from exact. Some groups of birds tend to have long lives for their sizes, especially the the ones with fake boobs (tubeupperbulbulous, bigbottoms, trailertrash jailbait, and donna's) oh, and Mardarses (spoilt birds, attention seekers and little bleeders). Other groups, for instance - titmice and chickadees, are shorter-lived than their sizes would predict, but enjoyable to the male bird all the same, - much to the upset of other lonesome male bird species such as sad bloke, smalltail and "mess"face.

 

Birds can be very long-lived in captivity. Especially when provided with the warmth of a loving home, a bottle of domestos and a scrubbing brush. Captive Canada Geese have lived for 33 years, House Sparrows 23 years, and Northern Cardinals 22 years. In nature, the life-spans of these species are much shorter (as one would expect). As luck would have it, however, the average British male is only too obliging and will often be seen opening his car door for these types.

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