Barnacle Goose Life History

Habitat

During the breeding season, Barnacle Geese in the Arctic nest on cliffs and small islands. Once chicks leave the nest, family groups forage on tundra and in coastal saltmarshes and mudflats. In the Baltic Sea and North Sea, they nest on vegetated coastal islands, where they're safer from predators, and then move their family groups to meadows and pastures on the mainland. Wintering birds across Europe forage on tidal mudflats, saltmarshes, meadows, and pastures.

Food

Barnacle Geese eat mainly plants, pecking rapidly at them on the ground. On their wintering and migratory staging grounds, they feed almost entirely on grasses, both planted and wild. Barnacle Geese wintering in the Netherlands ate about 150 grams of grass each day, or up to about 10% of their body mass. On Svalbard, birds just returning to their breeding grounds feed mostly on mosses. As snow melts and plants begin to grow, their diet shifts to include the leaves and stems of saxifrages and horsetails, willow buds, grasses, and sedges.

Nesting

Nest Placement

Historically nests on cliffs and cliff ledges. As the Svalbard population has grown, many Barnacle Geese have begun nesting on flat offshore islands. North Sea and Baltic Sea breeders nest mainly on small islands covered with vegetation, often near breeding gulls, terns, and cormorants.

Nest Description

A low mound of vegetation with a shallow depression in the middle; lined extensively with down and rimmed with a layer of droppings. Nests are often reused from year to year.

Nesting Facts

Behavior

Barnacle Geese are very social, forming large migratory and wintering flocks that sometimes cause significant agricultural damage. Pairs are monogamous, typically forming lifelong bonds when they are 2–3 years old. They are colonial breeders, usually breeding in groups of 5–50 pairs, with nests sometimes as close as 2 meters (7 feet) apart. The female incubates the eggs while the male stands guard. Chicks are completely covered in down when they hatch. They can walk, swim, and forage as soon as they leave the nest. Goslings feed themselves, but both parents protect and care for the young, with family groups staying together until the next breeding season.

Conservation

The International Union for Conservation of Nature lists Barnacle Goose’s conservation status as Least Concern, due to a very large population (estimated at 880,000 individuals), an increasing population trend, and a very large range.

In the late 1950s, the global Barnacle Goose population was approximately 20,000 birds—due in part to hunting and a nuclear testing program near one of their major Russian breeding sites. The three main breeding populations have since recovered strongly, and in 1971 a fourth breeding population emerged in the Baltic and North Seas.

Credits

Cramp, S., and K. E. L. Simmons, Editors (1977). The Birds of the Western Palearctic. Volume 1. Ostrich to Ducks. Oxford University Press, Oxford, UK.

International Union for Conservation of Nature (2022). The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. Version 2022-2. https://www.iucnredlist.org.

Jonsson, L. (1992). Birds of Europe: with North Africa and the Middle East. Christopher Helm, London, United Kingdom.

Mlodinow, S. G. and P. F. D. Boesman (2023). Barnacle Goose (Branta leucopsis), version 2.0. In Birds of the World (N. D. Sly, Editor). Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Ithaca, NY, USA. https://doi.org/10.2173/bow.bargoo.02

Svensson, L., K. Mullarney, and D. Zetterström (2009). Collins Bird Guide. Second edition. HarperCollins, London, UK.

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