On December 10, 1956, on a tiny atoll in the middle of the Pacific, an ornithologist slipped a band around the leg of a seabird sitting on her nest. It was routine fieldwork. Nobody could have guessed that the same bird would still be coming back to that island almost seven decades later.
In short
- The bird is Wisdom, a Laysan albatross banded on Midway Atoll in 1956.
- She was already an adult on a nest at the time, so she is estimated to be about 75 today.
- She is considered the oldest known wild bird in the world.
- She was back on Midway in November 2025, and albatross season is starting again.
A band, a nest and a bird named Wisdom
The scene took place on Midway Atoll, now a national wildlife refuge in the North Pacific. Wisdom was “an adult sitting on her nest when banded on December 10, 1956, by Chandler Robbins,” according to Friends of Midway Atoll.
That detail is what makes her age so remarkable. Laysan albatrosses do not reach sexual maturity until at least age 6, the group explains. A bird already nesting in 1956 had been born years earlier, which is why the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service estimates her age at about 75, as Ecoticias reported.
The man who found her again
Bands only tell a story if someone reads them again. In 2002, Robbins himself caught Wisdom once more and found her alive and still nesting. In 2006, refuge volunteers spotted her near old Navy barracks on the atoll, and USFWS biologist John Klavitter gave her a red auxiliary band so she would be easier to recognize, Friends of Midway Atoll recounts.
Since then, her returns have become a small event every fall. Birds that come back to the same place year after year are a familiar sight in backyards too, as we saw with the chickadees that struggle through every winter.
A mother past 70
Biologists estimate that Wisdom has laid 50 to 60 eggs and fledged as many as 30 chicks, according to Friends of Midway Atoll. Albatross parents share the work: on the nest, Wisdom has been seen stepping away so her partner could take his turn incubating the egg.
In late November 2024, she was photographed at Midway Atoll National Wildlife Refuge with a new partner and a freshly laid egg, NPR’s photo coverage shows. The chick hatched in late January 2025 but did not fledge, Ecoticias reported.
Will she come back this year?
In November 2025, Wisdom touched down on Midway again. Her mate, banded EX25, arrived on November 26. But on January 13, 2026, refuge staff confirmed that she had not laid an egg that season.
Albatrosses usually start arriving on the atoll in the second half of October, and most land in November. Whether Wisdom will nest this season is still an open question. Stories of survival against the odds always draw us in, like the family that lived cut off in the Siberian forest for 40 years.
The limit
Wisdom’s exact age is unknown: “about 75” is an estimate based on the fact that she was already nesting in 1956. The numbers of eggs and chicks are biologists’ estimates, not a precise count. And nothing yet confirms that she has returned to Midway this fall.
That’s the story.
