BRETT: It’s one of my favorite parts of the show. The EIB High Note. The EIB High Note: We mentioned earlier in the program that it’d be coming towards the end of the program. It’s about the world’s oldest known wild bird. Let that sink in. It’s the world’s oldest known wild bird, a Laysan albatross named Wisdom, who just hatched another chick at — wait for it — age 70! Age 70.
Now, Rush loved cool facts, and this story from the Good News Network (which you’ll be able to find over at the website) is chock-full of them. For example, almost as amazing as being a parent at 70 is the number of miles Wisdom has flown. By the time she was 60, she had logged at least two to three million miles since she was first banded in 1956.
That’s four to six trips from the Earth to the Moon and back. That’s with plenty of miles to spare. One reason for all those frequent flier miles is every Laysan albatross spends their first three to five years fledgling at sea, never touching the land. That’s pretty cool stuff. Now, longtime Rush listeners know that Rush’s favorite bird was the pelican. So, we thought this was the perfect opportunity to revisit some of Rush’s thoughts on this great bird.
RUSH: One of my favorite, all-time favorite birds is the pelican. I’m fascinated by the things. And a pelican’s my favorite bird next to the eagle. I have this fantasy that one day, a pelican’s gonna land in front of me and I’ll be able to pet it. It will never happen, but I still have the fantasy.
There’s a drone photo, my favorite bird’s the pelican, and this picture is of a pelican. The pelican’s flying just below the drone and the pelican is in the picture. Now, I mentioned that pelicans, and it’s one of my all-time favorite birds. Even though I live on a beach, you can’t get too close to these things unless they’re in captivity, then they charge you wanting to be fed.
But you have to go to a preserve for that. In the wild, you know, they kind of flee. Back in December I was playing golf, and there’s a freshwater lake on this golf course. And I noticed there were two pelicans. This is a picture I took. I was able to get that close to them; these two guys didn’t flinch.
By the way, these two women, they arranged for the carving of a pelican. The pelican’s my all-time favorite bird, and they arranged for the carving of a pelican. We keep it here in the public lobby of the EIB Broadcast Complex. Two sisters. We’ve mentioned them on this program before.
They sent me a gorgeous bronze sculpture of a pelican that we have back there. Wouldn’t the world be a greater place if there were more pelicans than there were seagulls? I understand why, but we can all dream. We can all have hope for the future, that the pelican population might someday overwhelm the seagull population.
BRETT: We can all pray, we can all hope for that.
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