Brant Geese arriving in Spring on Vancouver Island West Coast of Canada. SCO 10,523.
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, Alaska and eastern Siberia, and wintering mostly on the west coast of North America from southern Alaska to California, but also some in east Asia, mainly used to be a strictly coastal bird in winter, seldom leaving tidal estuaries, where it feeds on eel-grass (Zostera marina) and the seaweed, sea lettuce (Ulva). In recent decades, it has started using agricultural land a short distance inland, feeding extensively on grass and winter-sown cereals. 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 400,000-500,000 by the mid-1980s, possibly reaching the carrying capacity of the estuaries. In the breeding season, it uses low-lying wet coastal 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 brant goose is one of the species to which the Agreement on the Conservation of African-Eurasian Migratory Waterbirds (AEWA) Brant Geese are rarely found inland. They winter along Pacific coast of North America as well as the Aleutian islands. Their main habitat is estuaries and large bays where they can find food. They can often be seen as an off-shore migrant. Salt bays, oceans, mudflats, and tundra are favorite hangouts during the summer.
Size: 6054px × 4041px
Location: Rathtrevor Beach, Georgia Straits. Parksville. Vancouver Island. Canada.
Photo credit: © David Gowans / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
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