A big group of barnacle geese landed in the water right in front of me so I sat down to get some photos.
I quickly noticed that they all have their uniquie differences. No geese look exactly like the other.
It felt like a game to spot the difference between them. 😁
Two of them had a little fight and I got some action shots too.
@arcturus Thank you so much! 🥰
Yes, I do think that at least the feathers are a bit fragile but the good thing is that they can grow new ones if they loose some.
@kolombiken great photo, I haven’t seen Barnacle’s go for each other before but it also looks like you saw a lot more than I have seen in one place.
It’s Becky’s favourite goose, she likes the monochrome colour and the shorter beaks.
@stubacon This was a large group for the location. About 80 of them.
But they can easily be found in groups of several thousands not that far from here. Especially during spring and autumn. So maybe I shouldn’t have written
“big group”. 🙈
Anyway, that’s a good favourite goose! And I agree, they do look good in their monochrome colors.
@kolombiken beautiful birds!
@kolombiken they're so cute, what a great photo!! They're rare where I live, but do show up periodically, so I really hope I get to see some one day...
@idzie I hope so too!
Do you have a lot of brent geese? They are really rare here. But I like them a lot too.
@kolombiken I looked that name up, and seems to be the special I know as brants? In which case no, they're fairly rare where I am, and I haven't seen any yet. Far more common than barnacle geese though for sure, I actually just looked up sightings and there's been a couple near me from this week!! They get a lot more common further north in my province, too. :)
@idzie Yes, I think they’re called both brent and brant. English names are confusing to me sometimes. We call them prutgås.
But that’s cool you got some barnacle geese nearby as well!
@kolombiken and I just haven't been birding long enough to have a good handle on different English names! I mostly only know the one that's used in my immediate area.
Oh sorry, I meant reports of brents/brants, no barnacle geese around. But I really hope I get to see the brants this year!! Either near me, or because I finally get to head north again. Gotta listen to their calls so I can recognize any flying over... :)
@idzie Got it!
Sorry for getting it wrong.
They have a sound but in my opinion they are quite silent when they’re flying.
So if you spot a group of geese quite small, dark and silent then you should study them carefully!
(Barnacle geese on the other hand are very noisy and sounds a bit like barking small dogs.)
@kolombiken oh no worries, I wasn't very clear anyway.
That's a great tip, thank you! The other geese I see tend to be very noisy (mainly Canada geese, occasionally snow geese), so small and quiet geese would stand out quite a bit.