Brent Goose

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Brent Goose

The Brent Goose (Branta bernicla), a goose

Goose

Genus

A genus is a low-level taxonomic rank used in the classification of living and fossil organisms. The taxonomic ranks are domain , kingdom , phylum, class , order , family , genus, and species....
Branta, is known in North America

North America

North America is the northern continent of the Americas, situated in the Earth's northern hemisphere and almost totally in the western hemisphere....
as Brant. The spelling "Brant" is the original one, with "Brent" being a later folk-etymological idea that it was derived from a classical Greek waterbird name brenthos. It is in fact onomatopoeic

Onomatopoeia

Onomatopoeia is a word or a grouping of words that imitates the sound it is describing, such as animal noises like "oink" or "meow", or suggesting its source object, such as "boom", "zoom", "click", "bunk", "clang", "buzz", "zap", or "bang"....
, derived from the guttural call note of the species

Species

In biology, a species is one of the basic units of biological classification and a taxonomic rank. A species is often defined as a group of organisms capable of interbreeding and producing fertile offspring....
. For the origin of the scientific name bernicla, see Barnacle Goose

Barnacle Goose

The Barnacle Goose belongs to the genus Branta of black goose, which contains species with largely black plumage, distinguishing them from the grey Anser species....
.

Brent Goose is a small goose

Goose

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Encyclopedia

The Brent Goose (Branta bernicla), a goose

Goose

Genus

North America

Onomatopoeia

Species

Barnacle Goose

The Barnacle Goose belongs to the genus Branta of black goose, which contains species with largely black plumage, distinguishing them from the grey Anser species....
.

Appearance

The Brent Goose is a small goose

Goose

Goose is the English-language name for a considerable number of birds, belonging to the family Anatidae. This family also includes swans, most of which are larger than geese, and ducks, which are smaller....
, about 60 cm long and with a short, stubby bill. The under-tail is pure white, and the tail black and very short (the shortest of any goose).

The species is divided three subspecies:

Dark-bellied Brent Goose Branta bernicla bernicla
Pale-bellied Brent Goose Branta bernicla hrota (sometimes also known as Light-bellied Brent Goose in Europe, and Atlantic Brant in North America)
Black Brant
Black Brant

The Black Brant or Pacific Brent Goose, Branta bernicla nigricans, is a sub-species of the Brent Goose that breeds in Alaska and winters in Baja California....
Branta bernicla nigricans

Some DNA evidence suggests that these forms are genetically distinct; while a split into three separate species has been proposed, it is not widely accepted, with other evidence upholding their maintenance as a single species.

The body of the dark-bellied form is fairly uniformly dark grey-brown all over, the flanks and belly not significantly paler than the back. The head and neck are black, with a small white patch on either side of the neck. It breeds on the Arctic coasts of central and western Siberia

Siberia

Siberia , is the name given to the vast region constituting almost all of North Asia and for the most part currently serving as the massive central and eastern portion of the Russian Federation, having served in the same capacity previously for the Soviet Union from its beginning, and the Russian Empire beginning in the 16th century....
and winters in western Europe

Europe

Europe is, conventionally, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally divided from Asia to its east by the water divide of the Ural Mountains, the Ural , the Caspian Sea, and by the Caucasus Mountains to the southeast....
, with over half the population in southern England

England

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a country in Central Europe. It is bordered to the north by the North Sea, Denmark, and the Baltic Sea; to the east by Poland and the Czech Republic; to the south by Austria and Switzerland; and to the west by France, Luxembourg, Belgium, and the Netherlands....
and northern France

France

France , officially the French Republic , is a country whose Metropolitan France is located in Western Europe and that also comprises various Overseas departments and territories of France....
.

The Pale-bellied Brent Goose appears blackish-brown and light grey in colour. The body is different shades of grey-brown all over, the flanks and belly are significantly paler than the back and present a marked contrast. The head and neck are black, with a small white patch on either side of the neck. It breeds in Franz Josef Land

Franz Josef Land

Franz Josef Land, Franz Joseph Land, or Francis Joseph's Land is an archipelago located in the far north of Russia. It is found in the Arctic Ocean north of Novaya Zemlya and east of Svalbard, and is administered by Arkhangelsk Oblast....
, Svalbard

Svalbard

Svalbard is an archipelago in the Arctic Ocean north of mainland Europe, about midway between mainland Norway and the North Pole. It consists of a group of islands ranging from 74th parallel north to 81st parallel north, and 10th meridian east to 35th meridian east....
, Greenland

Greenland

Greenland is a member country of the Kingdom of Denmark located between the Arctic Ocean and Atlantic Oceans, east of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago....
and northeastern Canada

Canada

Canada is a country occupying most of northern North America, extending from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west and northward into the Arctic Ocean....
, wintering in Denmark

Denmark

Denmark is a Scandinavian country in northern Europe and the senior member of the Kingdom of Denmark. It is the southernmost of the Nordic countries....
, northeast England

England

Strangford Lough

Strangford Lough is a lough in County Down, Northern Ireland, separated from the Irish Sea by the Ards Peninsula. It is a popular tourist attraction noted for its fishing and the picturesque villages and townships which border its waters....
in Northern Ireland

Northern Ireland

conventional_long_name = Northern Ireland|native_name= Tuaisceart ?ireannNorlin Airlann|motto =|image_map = Europe location N-IRL2.png...
and the Atlantic coast of the U.S.

United States

The United States of America is a Federal government constitutional republic comprising U.S. state and a federal district. The country is situated mostly in central North America, where its Contiguous United States and Washington, D.C., the Capital districts and territories, lie between the Pacific Ocean and Atlantic Oceans, Borders of the U...
from Maine

Maine

The State of Maine is a U.S. state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America, bordering the Atlantic Ocean to the southeast, New Hampshire to the southwest, the Canadian provinces of Quebec to the northwest and New Brunswick to the northeast....
to Georgia

Georgia (U.S. state)

Georgia is a U.S. state in the United States and was one of the original Thirteen Colonies that revolted against United Kingdom rule in the American Revolution....
.

The Black Brant appears blackish-brown and white in colour. This form is a very contrastingly black and white bird, with a uniformly dark sooty-brown back, similarly-coloured underparts (with the dark colour extending furthest back of the three forms) and a prominent white flank patch; it also has larger white neck patches, forming a near-complete collar. It breeds in northwestern Canada

Canada

Canada is a country occupying most of northern North America, extending from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west and northward into the Arctic Ocean....
, Alaska

Alaska

Alaska is the largest U.S. state of the United States by area; it is situated in the northwest extremity of the North American continent, with Canada to the east, the Arctic Ocean to the north, and the Pacific Ocean to the west and south, with Russia further west across the Bering Strait....
and eastern Siberia

Siberia

North America

North America is the northern continent of the Americas, situated in the Earth's northern hemisphere and almost totally in the western hemisphere....
from southern Alaska

Alaska

California

California is a U.S. state on the West Coast of the United States of the United States, along the Pacific Ocean. It is bordered by Oregon to the north, Nevada to the east, Arizona to the southeast, and to the south the Mexico state of Baja California....
, but also some in east Asia

Asia

Asia is the world's largest and most populous continent. It covers 8.6% of the Earth's total surface area and, with over 4 billion people, it contains more than 60% of the world's current human population....
, mainly Japan

Japan

Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, People's Republic of China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south....
.

The Asian populations of the Black Brant populations had previous been regarded as a separate subspecies orientalis based on purported paler upperparts coloration; however, it is generally now believed that this is not correct.

A fourth form (known variously as Gray Brant, Intermediate Brant or Grey-bellied Brent Goose) has been proposed, although no formal subspecies description has been made as yet, for a population of birds breeding in central Arctic Canada (mainly Melville Island

Melville Island, Canada

Melville Island is a vast, uninhabited member of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago, Canada with an area of . It is the list of islands by area and List of Canadian islands by area....
), and wintering in the Puget Sound

Puget Sound

Puget Sound is an inland marine complex of waterways from the Pacific Ocean, connected to the rest of the Pacific by the Strait of Juan de Fuca, in the Pacific Northwest of the United States....
on the American west coast around the U.S./Canada border. These birds are intermediate in appearance between Black Brant and Pale-bellied Brent, having brown upperparts and grey underparts which give less of a contrast with the white flank patch. Given that this population exhibits mixed characters, it has also been proposed that, rather than being a separate subspecies, it is actually a result of interbreeding between these two forms.

Habitat

It used to be a strictly coast

Coast

The coast is defined as that part of the land adjoining or near the ocean or its saltwater arms. A precise line that can be called a coastline cannot be determined due to the process of tides....
al bird in winter, seldom leaving tidal

Tide

Tides are the rising of Earth's ocean surface caused by the tidal forces of the Moon and the Sun acting on the oceans. Tides cause changes in the depth of the marine and estuary water bodies and produce oscillating currents known as tidal streams, making prediction of tides important for coastal navigation ....
estuaries

Estuary

An estuary is a semi-enclosed coastal body of water with one or more rivers or streams flowing into it, and with a free connection to the open sea....
, where it feeds on eel-grass

Zostera

Zostera is a small genus of widely distributed seagrass, commonly called marine eelgrass or simply eelgrass. It contains twelve species....
(Zostera marina) and the seaweed

Seaweed

Seaweed is a loose colloquial term encompassing macroscopic, multicellular, benthos ocean algae. The term includes some members of the rhodophyta, phycophyta and green algae....
, sea lettuce

Sea lettuce

The sea lettuces comprise the genus Ulva, a group of edible green algae widely distributed along the coasts of the world's oceans.The many species of sea lettuce are a popular food in many of the places where they grow, including Scandinavia, Great Britain, Ireland, China, and Japan ....
(Ulva). In recent decades, it has started using agricultural land a short distance inland, feeding extensively on grass

Grass

Grass is the common word that generally describes monocotyledonous green plants. The family Poaceae are the "true grasses" and include most plants grown as grains, for pasture, and for lawns ....
and winter-sown cereal

Cereal

Cereals, or cereal grains, are mostly Poaceae cultivated for their edible brans or fruit seeds . Cereal grains are grown in greater quantities and provide more energy worldwide than any other type of crop; they are therefore staple foods....
s. This may be behaviour learnt by following other species of geese. Food resource pressure may also be important in forcing this change, as the world population has risen over tenfold to 400-500,000 by the mid 1980s, possibly reaching the carrying capacity

Carrying capacity

The supportable population of an organism, given the food, habitat, drinking water and other necessities available within an environment is known as the environment's carrying capacity for that organism....
of the estuaries. In the breeding season, it uses low-lying wet coastal tundra

Tundra

In physical geography, tundra is an biome where the tree growth is hindered by low temperatures and short growing seasons. The term tundra comes from Kildin Sami tund?r, which means "uplands, treeless mountain tract." There are two types of tundra: Arctic tundra and alpine tundra....
for both breeding and feeding. The nest is bowl-shaped, lined with grass and down, in an elevated location, often in a small pond.

The Brent Goose is one of the species to which the Agreement on the Conservation of African-Eurasian Migratory Waterbirds (AEWA

AEWA

The Agreement on the Conservation of African-Eurasian Migratory Waterbirds is the largest of its kind developed so far under the Bonn Convention....
) applies.

External links

(for Canada
Canada

Canada is a country occupying most of northern North America, extending from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west and northward into the Arctic Ocean....
, Germany, Germany-west, Jersey
Jersey

The Bailiwick of Jersey is a British Crown dependency off the coast of Normandy, France. As well as the island of Jersey itself, the bailiwick includes the nearly uninhabited islands of the Minquiers, ?cr?hous, the Pierres de Lecq and other rocks and reefs....
)
on the Internet Bird Collection
VIREO

Brent Goose

Appearance

Habitat

Further reading

Identification

External links