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Brant (goose)

The brant or brent goose (Branta bernicla) is a small goose of the genus Branta. There are three subspecies, all of which winter along temperate-zone sea-coasts and breed on the high-Arctic tundra.

Brant
Calls recorded in West Sussex, England
Scientific classification
Domain: Eukaryota
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Aves
Order: Anseriformes
Family: Anatidae
Genus: Branta
Species:
B. bernicla
Binomial name
Branta bernicla
Global map of range[2]
  Winter non-breeding range
  Summer breeding range
Synonyms

Anas bernicla Linnaeus, 1758

The Brent oilfield was named after the species.[3]

Description Edit

 
Wintering at the Wadden Sea, Germany
 
Feeding in Long Island Sound, Connecticut
 
Eggs, Collection Museum Wiesbaden

The brant is a small goose with a short, stubby bill. It measures 55–66 cm (22–26 in) long, 106–121 cm (42–48 in) across the wings and weighs 0.88–2.2 kg (1.9–4.9 lb).[4][5][6][7] The under-tail is pure white, and the tail black and very short (the shortest of any goose).

The species is divided into three subspecies:[8]

  • Dark-bellied brant goose B. b. bernicla (Linnaeus, 1758)
  • Pale-bellied brant goose B. b. hrota (Müller, 1776) (also known as light-bellied brent goose in Europe, and Atlantic brant in North America)
  • Black brant goose B. b. nigricans (Lawrence, 1846) (sometimes also known as the Pacific brant in North America)

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 B. b. bernicla 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. With a population of about 250000, it breeds on the Arctic coasts of central and western Siberia and winters in western Europe, with over half the population in southern England, the rest between northern Germany and north-western France.

The pale-bellied brant B. b. hrota 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. The total population is about 250,000, with the main population breeding in northeastern Canada and wintering along the Atlantic coast of the U.S. from Maine to Georgia,[4] and two smaller populations, one breeding in Franz Josef Land, Svalbard, and northeastern Greenland and wintering in Denmark, northeast England, and Scotland, and the other breeding in the far-northeastern Canadian islands and wintering in Ireland, southwest England, and in a small but significant area, le Havre de Regnéville, centered on the Sienne Estuary in Manche (Northern France).[9] In Ireland it is recorded in winter from a number of areas including Lough Foyle, Strangford Lough, Tralee Bay and Castlemaine Harbour.[10][11][12]

The black brant B. b. nigricans 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. The population of about 125,000 breeds in northwestern Canada, Alaska and eastern Siberia, and winters mostly on the west coast of North America from southern Alaska to California, but also some in east Asia, mainly Japan, also Korea and China. The population has been as high as 200,000 in 1981, and as low as 100,000 in 1987.[13]

The Asian populations of the black brant populations had previously been regarded as a separate subspecies B. b. orientalis based on purported paler upperparts coloration; however, it is generally now believed that this is not correct, and they are assigned to B. b. nigricans.

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), and wintering on Puget Sound on the American west coast around the U.S./Canada border. These birds are intermediate in appearance between black brant and pale-bellied brant, having brown upperparts and grey underparts which give less of a contrast with the white flank patch. It has also been proposed that, rather than being a separate subspecies, it is actually a result of interbreeding between these two forms, given that this population exhibits mixed characters.

Individual birds when wintering generally remain in loose family-groups, together with others of the same sub-species, but there is overlap in some areas (for example Western Europe, see above); and this is also true in the breeding colonies. Outside the breeding season, individuals with characteristics of any subspecies may occasionally turn up with regular migrants, and there has been debate as to whether this is related to migration routing accidents, or to breeding range overlap, or even interbreeding.

Habitat Edit

 
In a defensive position
 
In flight

The brant goose was strictly coastal bird in winter, rarely leaving tidal estuaries, where it feeds on eelgrass (Zostera marina)[8] and the seaweed, sea lettuce (Ulva).[4][14] On the east coast of North America, the inclusion of sea lettuce is a recent change to their diet, brought about by a blight on eelgrass in 1931. This resulted in the near-extirpation of the brant. The few that survived changed their diet to include sea lettuce until the eelgrass eventually began to return. Brants have maintained this diet ever since as a survival strategy.[15] A similar collapse in eelgrass in Ireland in the 1930s also negatively impacted the population.[16] In recent decades, it has started using agricultural land a short distance inland, feeding extensively on grass and winter-sown cereals. It has been suggested that they learnt this behaviour by following other species of geese. Food resource pressure may also be important in forcing this change, as the world population increased over 10-fold 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 near a small pond.

The brant goose is one of the species to which the Agreement on the Conservation of African-Eurasian Migratory Waterbirds applies.

Etymology Edit

Branta is a Latinised form of Old Norse brandgás, "burnt (black) goose", and bernicla is the medieval Latin name for the barnacle.

The brant and the similar barnacle goose were previously considered one species, formerly believed to be the same creature as the crustacean.[17] That myth can be dated back to at least the 12th century. Gerald of Wales claimed to have seen these birds hanging down from pieces of timber, William Turner accepted the theory, and John Gerard claimed to have seen the birds emerging from their shells. This myth arose because in the 1100s the migration of birds was unknown, but it was known that none of these birds was ever seen nesting, nor were eggs found, nor were goslings seen.[18]

The legend persisted until the end of the 18th century. In County Kerry, until relatively recently, Catholics could eat this bird on a Friday because it counted as fish.[19]

References Edit

  1. ^ BirdLife International (2016). "Branta bernicla". IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. 2016: e.T22679946A85966135. doi:10.2305/IUCN.UK.2016-3.RLTS.T22679946A85966135.en. Retrieved 12 November 2021.
  2. ^ Lewis, Tyler L.; Ward, David H.; Sedinger, James S.; Reed, Austin; Derksen, Dirk V.; Carboneras, Carles; Christie, David; Kirwan, Guy M. (4 March 2020). Billerman, Shawn M (ed.). "Brant (Branta bernicla)". Birds of the World. doi:10.2173/bow.brant.01.
  3. ^ . One Financial Markets. Archived from the original on 15 February 2016. Retrieved 25 August 2014.
  4. ^ a b c "Norsk Polarinstitutt". Norsk Polarinstitutt. Retrieved 17 September 2020.
  5. ^ "Brant". All About Birds. Cornell Lab of Ornithology. Retrieved 18 October 2011.
  6. ^ "Brent Goose". Oiseaux-birds.com. Retrieved 18 October 2011.
  7. ^ Dunning, John Barnard (2007). CRC handbook of avian body masses (2nd ed.). Boca Raton: CRC Press. p. 38. ISBN 978-1-4200-6445-2. OCLC 310154556.
  8. ^ a b Ganter, Barbara (2000). "Seagrass (Zostera spp.) as food for brent geese (Branta bernicla): an overview" (PDF). Helgoland Marine Research. 54 (2–3): 63–70. doi:10.1007/s101520050003. S2CID 3832705. Retrieved 8 December 2021. (subspecies, breeding/wintering ranges with flyway maps, diet)
  9. ^ Maheo, Roger (1976). "The Brent Geese of France, with special reference to the Golfe du Morbihan". Wildfowl. 27: 45–53.
  10. ^ Ruttledge, R.F. 1966 Ireland's Birds their Distribution and Migration. H.F. & G. Witherby Ltd
  11. ^ "Brent Goose (Light-bellied)". BirdWatch Ireland. Retrieved 17 September 2020.
  12. ^ "Branta bernicla hrota Pale-bellied Brent Goose". www.habitas.org.uk. Retrieved 17 September 2020.
  13. ^ Slimbridge: Black Brant[permanent dead link]
  14. ^ "Brant". Audubon. 13 November 2014. Retrieved 17 September 2020.
  15. ^ Book of North American Birds. 1990.
  16. ^ "Where wild geese fly". The Irish Times. 17 August 2002. Retrieved 17 September 2020.
  17. ^ Jobling, James A (2010). The Helm Dictionary of Scientific Bird Names. London: Christopher Helm. pp. 70, 77. ISBN 978-1-4081-2501-4.
  18. ^ Goose Barnacles: Undulating Creatures Retrieved 2011-11-28.
  19. ^ Cocker, Mark; Mabey, Richard (2005). Birds Britannica. London: Chatto & Windus. pp. 78–80. ISBN 0-7011-6907-9.

Further reading Edit

  • Millington, Richard (1997). Separation of Black Brant, Dark-bellied Brent Goose and Pale-bellied Brent Goose Birding World 10(1):11–15; an identification paper
  • Shields, Gerald F. (July 1990). "Analysis of mitochondrial DNA of Pacific Black Brant". The Auk. American Ornithologists' Union. 107 (3): 620–623.
  • Syroechkovski, E.E.; Zöckler, C.; Lappo, E. (December 1998). "Status of Brent Goose in northwestern Yakutia, East Siberia" (PDF). British Birds. British Birds Rarities Committee. 91 (12): 565–572. (this paper presented claims that Black Brant and Dark-bellied Brent Goose were interbreeding extensively in the Russian Arctic)
  • Sangster, George (2000). Taxonomic status of bernicla and nigricans Brent Goose British Birds 91(12):565–572 (a critical re-evaluation of the claims made in the above paper by Syroechkovski et al.)
  • Ebels, E.B. (1997). "Identification of brent geese: a new feature" (PDF). Dutch Birding. Dutch Birding Association. 19 (5): 232–236 (highlights the differences in belly colour between the various forms).

External links Edit

  • Brent Goose at RSPB: Birds by Name
  • BBC Nature - Brent Goose 9 September 2018 at the Wayback Machine
  • Stamps from Canada, Germany, and Jersey at bird-stamps.org (the Brent goose has also featured on stamps from Eire, Finland, and Oman; these can easily be found via any internet search-engine).
  • "Brent Goose media". Internet Bird Collection.
  • Brant photo gallery at VIREO (Drexel University)
  • Brant Goose, B.C. Outdoor Wilderness Guide

brant, goose, black, brant, redirects, here, rocket, black, brant, rocket, this, article, cites, sources, does, provide, page, references, help, improve, introducing, citations, that, more, precise, providing, page, numbers, existing, citations, september, 201. Black Brant redirects here For the rocket see Black Brant rocket This article cites its sources but does not provide page references You can help to improve it by introducing citations that are more precise and providing page numbers for existing citations September 2010 Learn how and when to remove this template message The brant or brent goose Branta bernicla is a small goose of the genus Branta There are three subspecies all of which winter along temperate zone sea coasts and breed on the high Arctic tundra Brant source source Calls recorded in West Sussex EnglandConservation statusLeast Concern IUCN 3 1 1 Scientific classificationDomain EukaryotaKingdom AnimaliaPhylum ChordataClass AvesOrder AnseriformesFamily AnatidaeGenus BrantaSpecies B berniclaBinomial nameBranta bernicla Linnaeus 1758 Global map of range 2 Winter non breeding range Summer breeding rangeSynonymsAnas bernicla Linnaeus 1758The Brent oilfield was named after the species 3 Contents 1 Description 2 Habitat 3 Etymology 4 References 5 Further reading 6 External linksDescription Edit Wintering at the Wadden Sea Germany Feeding in Long Island Sound Connecticut Eggs Collection Museum WiesbadenThe brant is a small goose with a short stubby bill It measures 55 66 cm 22 26 in long 106 121 cm 42 48 in across the wings and weighs 0 88 2 2 kg 1 9 4 9 lb 4 5 6 7 The under tail is pure white and the tail black and very short the shortest of any goose The species is divided into three subspecies 8 Dark bellied brant goose B b bernicla Linnaeus 1758 Pale bellied brant goose B b hrota Muller 1776 also known as light bellied brent goose in Europe and Atlantic brant in North America Black brant goose B b nigricans Lawrence 1846 sometimes also known as the Pacific brant in North America 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 B b bernicla 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 With a population of about 250000 it breeds on the Arctic coasts of central and western Siberia and winters in western Europe with over half the population in southern England the rest between northern Germany and north western France The pale bellied brant B b hrota 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 The total population is about 250 000 with the main population breeding in northeastern Canada and wintering along the Atlantic coast of the U S from Maine to Georgia 4 and two smaller populations one breeding in Franz Josef Land Svalbard and northeastern Greenland and wintering in Denmark northeast England and Scotland and the other breeding in the far northeastern Canadian islands and wintering in Ireland southwest England and in a small but significant area le Havre de Regneville centered on the Sienne Estuary in Manche Northern France 9 In Ireland it is recorded in winter from a number of areas including Lough Foyle Strangford Lough Tralee Bay and Castlemaine Harbour 10 11 12 The black brant B b nigricans 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 The population of about 125 000 breeds in northwestern Canada Alaska and eastern Siberia and winters mostly on the west coast of North America from southern Alaska to California but also some in east Asia mainly Japan also Korea and China The population has been as high as 200 000 in 1981 and as low as 100 000 in 1987 13 The Asian populations of the black brant populations had previously been regarded as a separate subspecies B b orientalis based on purported paler upperparts coloration however it is generally now believed that this is not correct and they are assigned to B b nigricans 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 and wintering on Puget Sound on the American west coast around the U S Canada border These birds are intermediate in appearance between black brant and pale bellied brant having brown upperparts and grey underparts which give less of a contrast with the white flank patch It has also been proposed that rather than being a separate subspecies it is actually a result of interbreeding between these two forms given that this population exhibits mixed characters Individual birds when wintering generally remain in loose family groups together with others of the same sub species but there is overlap in some areas for example Western Europe see above and this is also true in the breeding colonies Outside the breeding season individuals with characteristics of any subspecies may occasionally turn up with regular migrants and there has been debate as to whether this is related to migration routing accidents or to breeding range overlap or even interbreeding Habitat Edit In a defensive position In flightThe brant goose was strictly coastal bird in winter rarely leaving tidal estuaries where it feeds on eelgrass Zostera marina 8 and the seaweed sea lettuce Ulva 4 14 On the east coast of North America the inclusion of sea lettuce is a recent change to their diet brought about by a blight on eelgrass in 1931 This resulted in the near extirpation of the brant The few that survived changed their diet to include sea lettuce until the eelgrass eventually began to return Brants have maintained this diet ever since as a survival strategy 15 A similar collapse in eelgrass in Ireland in the 1930s also negatively impacted the population 16 In recent decades it has started using agricultural land a short distance inland feeding extensively on grass and winter sown cereals It has been suggested that they learnt this behaviour by following other species of geese Food resource pressure may also be important in forcing this change as the world population increased over 10 fold 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 near a small pond The brant goose is one of the species to which the Agreement on the Conservation of African Eurasian Migratory Waterbirds applies Etymology EditBranta is a Latinised form of Old Norse brandgas burnt black goose and bernicla is the medieval Latin name for the barnacle The brant and the similar barnacle goose were previously considered one species formerly believed to be the same creature as the crustacean 17 That myth can be dated back to at least the 12th century Gerald of Wales claimed to have seen these birds hanging down from pieces of timber William Turner accepted the theory and John Gerard claimed to have seen the birds emerging from their shells This myth arose because in the 1100s the migration of birds was unknown but it was known that none of these birds was ever seen nesting nor were eggs found nor were goslings seen 18 The legend persisted until the end of the 18th century In County Kerry until relatively recently Catholics could eat this bird on a Friday because it counted as fish 19 References Edit BirdLife International 2016 Branta bernicla IUCN Red List of Threatened Species 2016 e T22679946A85966135 doi 10 2305 IUCN UK 2016 3 RLTS T22679946A85966135 en Retrieved 12 November 2021 Lewis Tyler L Ward David H Sedinger James S Reed Austin Derksen Dirk V Carboneras Carles Christie David Kirwan Guy M 4 March 2020 Billerman Shawn M ed Brant Branta bernicla Birds of the World doi 10 2173 bow brant 01 UK Brent Oil One Financial Markets Archived from the original on 15 February 2016 Retrieved 25 August 2014 a b c Norsk Polarinstitutt Norsk Polarinstitutt Retrieved 17 September 2020 Brant All About Birds Cornell Lab of Ornithology Retrieved 18 October 2011 Brent Goose Oiseaux birds com Retrieved 18 October 2011 Dunning John Barnard 2007 CRC handbook of avian body masses 2nd ed Boca Raton CRC Press p 38 ISBN 978 1 4200 6445 2 OCLC 310154556 a b Ganter Barbara 2000 Seagrass Zostera spp as food for brent geese Branta bernicla an overview PDF Helgoland Marine Research 54 2 3 63 70 doi 10 1007 s101520050003 S2CID 3832705 Retrieved 8 December 2021 subspecies breeding wintering ranges with flyway maps diet Maheo Roger 1976 The Brent Geese of France with special reference to the Golfe du Morbihan Wildfowl 27 45 53 Ruttledge R F 1966 Ireland s Birds their Distribution and Migration H F amp G Witherby Ltd Brent Goose Light bellied BirdWatch Ireland Retrieved 17 September 2020 Branta bernicla hrota Pale bellied Brent Goose www habitas org uk Retrieved 17 September 2020 Slimbridge Black Brant permanent dead link Brant Audubon 13 November 2014 Retrieved 17 September 2020 Book of North American Birds 1990 Where wild geese fly The Irish Times 17 August 2002 Retrieved 17 September 2020 Jobling James A 2010 The Helm Dictionary of Scientific Bird Names London Christopher Helm pp 70 77 ISBN 978 1 4081 2501 4 Goose Barnacles Undulating Creatures Retrieved 2011 11 28 Cocker Mark Mabey Richard 2005 Birds Britannica London Chatto amp Windus pp 78 80 ISBN 0 7011 6907 9 Further reading EditMillington Richard 1997 Separation of Black Brant Dark bellied Brent Goose and Pale bellied Brent Goose Birding World 10 1 11 15 an identification paper Shields Gerald F July 1990 Analysis of mitochondrial DNA of Pacific Black Brant The Auk American Ornithologists Union 107 3 620 623 Syroechkovski E E Zockler C Lappo E December 1998 Status of Brent Goose in northwestern Yakutia East Siberia PDF British Birds British Birds Rarities Committee 91 12 565 572 this paper presented claims that Black Brant and Dark bellied Brent Goose were interbreeding extensively in the Russian Arctic Sangster George 2000 Taxonomic status of bernicla and nigricans Brent Goose British Birds 91 12 565 572 a critical re evaluation of the claims made in the above paper by Syroechkovski et al Ebels E B 1997 Identification of brent geese a new feature PDF Dutch Birding Dutch Birding Association 19 5 232 236 highlights the differences in belly colour between the various forms External links Edit Wikimedia Commons has media related to Branta bernicla Wikispecies has information related to Branta bernicla BirdGuides Brent Goose Page Brent Goose at RSPB Birds by Name BBC Nature Brent Goose Archived 9 September 2018 at the Wayback Machine Stamps from Canada Germany and Jersey at bird stamps org the Brent goose has also featured on stamps from Eire Finland and Oman these can easily be found via any internet search engine Brent Goose media Internet Bird Collection Brant photo gallery at VIREO Drexel University Brant Goose B C Outdoor Wilderness Guide Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title Brant goose amp oldid 1150657111, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,

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