How to tell how old a bird is

There are several methods.

1) The lower the social security number, the older the bird, but this does not work on most migratory species;

2) You ask for its birth certificate, but they often fake these.

3) Go here and read this post on how to do it using Science.

More like this

Wait.
Are you telling me that cutting them in half and counting the rings is not an option?

whoops...

Regarding dating methods by using SSN: The SSN is not assigned in order of birth. The pre-fixes are regional. There's a more complete explanation here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Security_number

I had a friend who claimed his grandma was so old her SSN was 000-00-0003, but that didn't sound right to me, so I checked it out. My grandparents were older, and their SSN's each stared with "47" like mine, so what he said didn't make sense.

What #3 said.

Both my kids have lower numbers than my husband & I.

There are many more methods than these, most involving assessing the molt. Some birds can be aged to 3 or more years using molt limits.