The Lincolnshire Bird Club

I was alerted by my local gamedealer back in November of last year to a drake mallard that had been shot at a shoot near Woodhall Spa sporting a British ring.
The details were returned to me recently from the BTO which I thought might be of interest to members of this forum and the ringing fraternity in particular.
The bird had been rung as a 1st. year male at Borough Fen Decoy by the Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust. It's recovery at Woodhall Spa represented a movement of only 58km, not a very momentous record you might think.
However it was the age of the bird that amazed me. The bird had been rung on 4th. October 1993 thus making this individual falling to the gun one month after his 13th birthday!
It would appear to me that this is a grand old age for a quarry species. I have no idea of what the record age is for a mallard but I would imagine the average must be quite young, perhaps you ringers can enlighten me?
In any case I'm rather glad not to have bought this bird for the pot as had I known its age I think it would have had to have spent some considerable time in the pressure cooker!

This from an American site

For example, banding information collected at the Bird Banding Laboratory indicates that the oldest northern pintail ever recovered was 22 years old, the oldest mallard 23 years old.

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Lincolnshire Birds https://www.flickr.com/photos/120340949 ... 8078912016
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Contact: recorder_north@lincsbirdclub.co.uk

Mallard Anas platyrhynchos 20.05.17
GM24822 3F 08.09.1965 Peakirk, Peterborough: 52°39'N 0°13'W (Cambridgeshire)
V 25.02.1986 Steeple: 51°42'N 0°47'E (Essex) 126 km SSE
The above is an extract from the BTO web site :-http://www.bto.org/ringing/ringinfo/longevity.htm
which shows this Mallard at 20 years 5 months 17 days and the bird was still alive. 13 years is a long time for a target bird as you say.

Keith