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Bird Sightings : Hebrides : Barnacle Goose

Barnacle Geese

(Rood Goose, Barny, Grollog)

Branta leucopsis

Gaelic: Cathan

Photograph © John Dempsey
North Uist - Outer Hebrides (Western Isles)
March 2007

 

Our Barnacle Geese photographs

Barnacle Geese flock	Barnacle Geese flight	Barnacle Geese flight

 

• Barnacle Goose (Rood Goose, Barny, Grollog)
• Branta leucopsis
• UK AMBER LIST 1000 feral birds breeding, Winter visitors 67,000, (Oct - Mar) RSPB
• UK: Fairly common passage visitor (usually occurs in small numbers but sometimes seen in good numbers) and winter visitor (usually occurs in small numbers)
• Breeds: Nests: high cliffs North Atlantic Arctic Islands: East Greenland, Spitsbergen, Northern Russia
• Winters: South of breeding area to South Europe
• Habitat: Wetland meadows, marsh, rivers (estuaries on migration)
• Diet: shoots, leaves
• Medium-sized, sociable goose. Creamy-white face. Black head, neck & breast. White belly. Blue-grey barred back. Wings and its back silver-grey with black-and-white bars. Black tail.
• Flight: V-shaped white rump patch & silver-grey underwing visible. Flies in packs & long lines, with barking, yapping chorus
• Max recorded age 26yrs 8mths, typical lifespan 12yrs
• Listen to a barnacle goose (RSPB site)

 

In the Arctic where most of the Barnacle Geese breed, Polar Bears are a problem, so the birds nest high on cliffs. When the 3 day old goslings are hungry they jump off the cliffs. Many of them die in this process. The surviving goslings then have a half mile hike to their feeding areas, stalked by Arctic foxes along the way.

 

 

Main Barnacle Goose Populations
Breeding	Wintering	Population
Eastern Greenland	Hebrides	40,000
Svalbard Archipelago (Between Norway & North Pole)	Solway Firth	24,000
Novaya Zemlya Archipelago (North of Russia)	Netherlands	130,000
Baltic Sea islands (Estonia, Finland, Denmark, and Sweden)	Netherlands	8,000
	(Source WIKI)

 

 

Barnacle Goose records in the Western Isles

Fairly common passage visitor (usually occurs in small numbers but sometimes seen in good numbers) and winter visitor (usually occurs in small numbers).
(Source: Outer Hebrides Bird Report (2001)

On the chart below the darker the shade of blue the more abundant the Barnacle Goose is during a month or the more likely you are to see it.

J	F	M	A	M	J	J	A	S	O	N	D

(Source: Outer Hebrides Birds Checklist)

 

 

Collective nouns for Geese

A nide of geese

A gaggle of geese

A flock of geese

A wedge of geese (flying)

A skein of geese (flying)

From WIKI

 

 

Other local bird photographs

Sources of information for the bird sightings section

John's Blog including his two stays in the Uists

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