Bird Sightings : Hebrides : Brent Goose

Brent Goose

Branta bernicla

Gaelic: Gèadha-got

Photograph ©Terry Fountain
Stinky Bay - Benbecula - Outer Hebrides (Western Isles)
22nd September, 2006

• Brent Goose
• Branta bernicla , Gaelic: Gèadha-got
• WI Passage migrant, April to Mid May & Sept to Oct. Rare winter visitor
• UK AMBER LIST, (101,000 birds winter) BTO
• Breeds: North Russia, North America, Canada, Greenland, Spitsbergen
• Winters: South of breeding range to USA, Africa, China,
• Habitat: Tundra, (migration marshes, estuaries)
• Diet: Grazing inter-tidal eelgrass and other vegetation
• Smallest & darkest goose (mallard sized). Black head & neck. Grey-brown back. Grey-white lower breast & flanks 'pale-bellied'. Adults: small white neck patch.
• Flies in loose flocks (not skeins)
• Max age 18yr 10mths
• Listen to a brent goose (RSPB site)

 

The Western Isles birds are usually passage migrants, the 'pale-bellied' birds that breed in the Eastern Canadian Arctic and winter in Ireland. This species makes the longest migration of any goose (4735 miles). Some parts of it's journey are non-stop for up to 1800 miles.

Brent geese are very dependent upon inter-tidal eel-grass and in the 1950's this plant declined due to a parasitic disease and the UK wintering brent numbers dropped drastically. Measures were introduced to recover the eelgrass and there are now about 100,000 brents in the UK in winter, roughly an eight-fold increase on the 1950's numbers.

 

Terry Fountain's web site:
http://www.hebridesphotographic.com

Other local bird photographs

Home • Contact Webmaster • Advertising

Copyright © 2006 Western Isles Netspace.  User Agreement and Privacy policy  .