The barnacle goose (''Branta leucopsis'') is a
species
A species () is often defined as the largest group of organisms in which any two individuals of the appropriate sexes or mating types can produce fertile offspring, typically by sexual reproduction. It is the basic unit of Taxonomy (biology), ...
of
goose
A goose (: geese) is a bird of any of several waterfowl species in the family Anatidae. This group comprises the genera '' Anser'' (grey geese and white geese) and '' Branta'' (black geese). Some members of the Tadorninae subfamily (e.g., Egy ...
that belongs to the genus ''
Branta
The black geese of the genus ''Branta'' are waterfowl belonging to the Goose, true geese and swans subfamily Anserinae. They occur in the northern coastal regions of the Palearctic and all over North America, Bird migration, migrating to more so ...
'' of black geese, which contains species with extensive black in the
plumage
Plumage () is a layer of feathers that covers a bird and the pattern, colour, and arrangement of those feathers. The pattern and colours of plumage differ between species and subspecies and may vary with age classes. Within species, there can b ...
, distinguishing them from the grey ''
Anser'' species. Despite its superficial similarity to the
brant goose, genetic analysis has shown its closest relative is the
cackling goose
The cackling goose (''Branta hutchinsii'') is a species of goose found in North America and East Asia.
Systematics
The genus name ''Branta'' is a Latinised form of Old Norse ''Brandgás'', "burnt (black) goose", and the specific epithet ''hutchi ...
.
Taxonomy and naming
The barnacle goose was first
classified taxonomically by Johann Matthäus Bechstein in 1803. ''Branta'' is a Latinised form of
Old Norse
Old Norse, also referred to as Old Nordic or Old Scandinavian, was a stage of development of North Germanic languages, North Germanic dialects before their final divergence into separate Nordic languages. Old Norse was spoken by inhabitants ...
''Brandgás'', "burnt
lack
Lack may refer to:
Places
* Lack, County Fermanagh, a townland in Northern Ireland
* Lack, Poland
* Łąck, Poland
* Lack Township, Juniata County, Pennsylvania, US
Other uses
* Lack (surname)
* Lack (manque), a term in Lacan's psychoanalyti ...
goose" and the specific epithet is from the
Ancient Greek
Ancient Greek (, ; ) includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the classical antiquity, ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Greek ...
''leukos'' "white", and ''opsis'' "faced".
In the mediaeval period, the barnacle goose and the similar
brant goose were not distinguished, and
were formerly believed to spawn from the
goose barnacle
Goose barnacles, also called percebes, turtle-claw barnacles, stalked barnacles, gooseneck barnacles, are filter-feeding crustaceans that live attached to hard surfaces of rocks and flotsam in the ocean intertidal zone. Goose barnacles form ...
. This gave rise to the English name of the barnacle goose and the scientific name of the brant goose.
[ The barnacle myth can be dated back to at least the 12th century. ]Gerald of Wales
Gerald of Wales (; ; ; ) was a Cambro-Norman priest and historian. As a royal clerk to the king and two archbishops, he travelled widely and wrote extensively. He studied and taught in France and visited Rome several times, meeting the Pope. He ...
claimed to have seen these birds hanging down from pieces of timber, William Turner accepted the theory, and John Gerard
John Gerard (also John Gerarde, 1545–1612) was an English herbalist with a large garden in Holborn, now part of London. His 1,484-page illustrated ''Herball, or Generall Historie of Plantes'', first published in 1597, became a popular garde ...
claimed to have seen the birds emerging from their shells. The legend persisted until the end of the 18th century. In County Kerry
County Kerry () is a Counties of Ireland, county on the southwest coast of Republic of Ireland, Ireland, within the Provinces of Ireland, province of Munster and the Southern Region, Ireland, Southern Region. It is bordered by two other countie ...
, until relatively recently, Catholics abstaining from meat during Lent
Lent (, 'Fortieth') is the solemn Christianity, Christian religious moveable feast#Lent, observance in the liturgical year in preparation for Easter. It echoes the 40 days Jesus spent fasting in the desert and enduring Temptation of Christ, t ...
could still eat this bird because it was considered as fish. It is sometimes claimed that the word comes from a Celtic
Celtic, Celtics or Keltic may refer to:
Language and ethnicity
*pertaining to Celts, a collection of Indo-European peoples in Europe and Anatolia
**Celts (modern)
*Celtic languages
**Proto-Celtic language
*Celtic music
*Celtic nations
Sports Foot ...
word for "limpet
Limpets are a group of aquatic snails with a conical gastropod shell, shell shape (patelliform) and a strong, muscular foot. This general category of conical shell is known as "patelliform" (dish-shaped). Existing within the class Gastropoda, ...
", but the sense-history seems to go in the opposite direction.[
]
Description
The barnacle goose is a medium-sized goose, long, with a wingspan of and a weight of .[ It has a white face and black head, neck, and upper breast. Its belly is white. The wings and its back are silver-grey with black-and-white bars that look like they are shining when the light reflects on it. During flight, a V-shaped white rump patch and the silver-grey underwing linings are visible. They look similar to cackling geese but have grey and white instead of brown bodies, and more extensive white on the head; from ]Canada geese
The Canada goose (''Branta canadensis''), sometimes called Canadian goose, is a large species of goose with a black head and neck, white cheeks, white under its chin, and a brown body. It is native to the arctic and temperate regions of North ...
they are additionally distinguished by being smaller, and having smaller beaks. The juveniles are similar to the adults, but like with all geese, can be distinguished by the rounded rather than square-ended mantle and flank feathers.
Distribution and population size
There are three original populations of barnacle geese, with separate breeding and wintering ranges. Since the 1960s, two new breeding populations have established themselves, both located along migration
Migration, migratory, or migrate may refer to: Human migration
* Human migration, physical movement by humans from one region to another
** International migration, when peoples cross state boundaries and stay in the host state for some minimum le ...
routes of two of the original populations. The five populations are:
* Breeding in eastern Greenland
Greenland is an autonomous territory in the Danish Realm, Kingdom of Denmark. It is by far the largest geographically of three constituent parts of the kingdom; the other two are metropolitan Denmark and the Faroe Islands. Citizens of Greenlan ...
, wintering on the Hebrides
The Hebrides ( ; , ; ) are the largest archipelago in the United Kingdom, off the west coast of the Scotland, Scottish mainland. The islands fall into two main groups, based on their proximity to the mainland: the Inner Hebrides, Inner and Ou ...
of western Scotland
Scotland is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It contains nearly one-third of the United Kingdom's land area, consisting of the northern part of the island of Great Britain and more than 790 adjac ...
and in western Ireland
Ireland (, ; ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe. Geopolitically, the island is divided between the Republic of Ireland (officially Names of the Irish state, named Irelan ...
. Population increased from about 7,000 individuals in the 1960s to 44,000 in 2011.
* A recently established population, derived from the Greenland population, has bred more-or-less regularly in Iceland
Iceland is a Nordic countries, Nordic island country between the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic and Arctic Oceans, on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge between North America and Europe. It is culturally and politically linked with Europe and is the regi ...
since 1964. The population has rapidly increased in the last few decades, with more than 4000 breeding pairs in 2024. They winter in the same area as Greenland population.
* Breeding on Svalbard
Svalbard ( , ), previously known as Spitsbergen or Spitzbergen, is a Norway, Norwegian archipelago that lies at the convergence of the Arctic Ocean with the Atlantic Ocean. North of continental Europe, mainland Europe, it lies about midway be ...
, Norway
Norway, officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic countries, Nordic country located on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. The remote Arctic island of Jan Mayen and the archipelago of Svalbard also form part of the Kingdom of ...
, and wintering almost entirely in Solway Firth
The Solway Firth is an inlet on the west coast of Great Britain, forming part of the border between England and Scotland. The firth (a Scottish term for an inlet of the sea) divides Cumbria (including the Solway Plain) from Dumfries and Gallow ...
on the England/Scotland border, with small numbers elsewhere in the region, particularly around Budle Bay in Northumberland. This population increased from a few hundred individuals in the 1940s to about 34,000 in 2004, and 40,000 by the start of the 2020s.
* Breeding on Novaya Zemlya
Novaya Zemlya (, also , ; , ; ), also spelled , is an archipelago in northern Russia. It is situated in the Arctic Ocean, in the extreme northeast of Europe, with Cape Flissingsky, on the northern island, considered the extreme points of Europe ...
, Dolgy Island, Kanin Peninsula
The Kanin Peninsula () is a large peninsula in Nenets Autonomous Okrug, Russia.
Geography
It is surrounded by the White Sea to the west and by the Barents Sea to the north and east.
Shoyna (also spelled Shoina) is one of the few communities o ...
, Yugorsky Peninsula and the Barents Sea
The Barents Sea ( , also ; , ; ) is a marginal sea of the Arctic Ocean, located off the northern coasts of Norway and Russia and divided between Norwegian and Russian territorial waters.World Wildlife Fund, 2008. It was known earlier among Russi ...
coastline in the Russian Arctic, wintering in the Wadden Sea
The Wadden Sea ( ; ; or ; ; ; ) is an intertidal zone in the southeastern part of the North Sea. It lies between the coast of northwestern continental Europe and the range of low-lying Frisian Islands, forming a shallow body of water with tida ...
area in southwest Denmark
Denmark is a Nordic countries, Nordic country in Northern Europe. It is the metropole and most populous constituent of the Kingdom of Denmark,, . also known as the Danish Realm, a constitutionally unitary state that includes the Autonomous a ...
, northwest Germany
Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...
and the Netherlands
, Terminology of the Low Countries, informally Holland, is a country in Northwestern Europe, with Caribbean Netherlands, overseas territories in the Caribbean. It is the largest of the four constituent countries of the Kingdom of the Nether ...
. Increased from about 70,000 individuals in 1980 to 1.2 million individuals in 2015.
* A recent population, derived from the Russian population along with escaped captive birds, has become established since 1971; breeding on islands in the Baltic Sea
The Baltic Sea is an arm of the Atlantic Ocean that is enclosed by the countries of Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Russia, Sweden, and the North European Plain, North and Central European Plain regions. It is the ...
, and on islands and coasts of the southern North Sea
The North Sea lies between Great Britain, Denmark, Norway, Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, and France. A sea on the European continental shelf, it connects to the Atlantic Ocean through the English Channel in the south and the Norwegian Se ...
(Estonia
Estonia, officially the Republic of Estonia, is a country in Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by the Gulf of Finland across from Finland, to the west by the Baltic Sea across from Sweden, to the south by Latvia, and to the east by Ru ...
, Finland
Finland, officially the Republic of Finland, is a Nordic country in Northern Europe. It borders Sweden to the northwest, Norway to the north, and Russia to the east, with the Gulf of Bothnia to the west and the Gulf of Finland to the south, ...
, Sweden
Sweden, formally the Kingdom of Sweden, is a Nordic countries, Nordic country located on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. It borders Norway to the west and north, and Finland to the east. At , Sweden is the largest Nordic count ...
, Denmark, the Netherlands, Germany and Belgium
Belgium, officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a country in Northwestern Europe. Situated in a coastal lowland region known as the Low Countries, it is bordered by the Netherlands to the north, Germany to the east, Luxembourg to the southeas ...
). Winters in or near breeding range or moves to the Wadden Sea. Some exchange with Russian population continues. Rapidly increasing; the Danish, Dutch and Swedish populations each contain several thousand breeding pairs, and the Belgian, Estonian, Finnish and German populations each contain several hundred breeding pairs.
The species has been recorded as a vagrant
Vagrancy is the condition of wandering homelessness without regular employment or income. Vagrants usually live in poverty and support themselves by travelling while engaging in begging, scavenging, or petty theft. In Western countries, ...
in eastern Canada
Canada is a country in North America. Its Provinces and territories of Canada, ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, making it the world's List of coun ...
and the Northeastern United States
The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...
; care must be taken to distinguish these wild birds from escaped individuals, as barnacle geese are popular waterfowl with collectors.
Ecology, behaviour, and life history
Barnacle geese frequently build their nests high on mountain cliff
In geography and geology, a cliff or rock face is an area of Rock (geology), rock which has a general angle defined by the vertical, or nearly vertical. Cliffs are formed by the processes of weathering and erosion, with the effect of gravity. ...
s, away from predators (primarily Arctic fox
The Arctic fox (''Vulpes lagopus''), also known as the white fox, polar fox, or snow fox, is a small species of fox native to the Arctic regions of the Northern Hemisphere and common throughout the Tundra#Arctic tundra, Arctic tundra biome. I ...
es and polar bear
The polar bear (''Ursus maritimus'') is a large bear native to the Arctic and nearby areas. It is closely related to the brown bear, and the two species can Hybrid (biology), interbreed. The polar bear is the largest extant species of bear ...
s), but also away from their feeding grounds such as lakes, rivers. Like all geese, the goslings are not fed by the adults. Instead of bringing food to the newly hatched goslings, the goslings are brought to the ground. The parents show them the way to jump from the cliff and the goslings follow them by imprinting and take the plunge.
Unable to fly, the goslings, in their first days of life, jump off the cliff and fall; their small size, feathery down, and very light weight helps to protect some of them from serious injury when they hit the rocks below, but many die from the impact. Arctic foxes are attracted by the noise made by the parent geese during this time, and capture many dead or injured goslings. The foxes also stalk the young as they are led by the parents to wetland feeding areas. Due to these hardships only 50% of the chicks survive the first month.
File:Branta leucopsis EM1B9676 (34375189060).jpg, Brooding in Sweden
File:Branta leucopsis EM1A2624 (27349357341).jpg, Pair with goslings in Sweden
File:Branta Leucopsis Juvenile.jpg, Juvenile
File:MigrationFlock.jpg, Flock on autumn migration
Conservation
The barnacle goose is common and widespread, and its population and breeding range has increased in recent decades. The barnacle goose is one of the species to which the applies.[
The Svalbard population was heavily impacted by the early 2020s ]highly pathogenic avian influenza
Avian influenza, also known as avian flu or bird flu, is a disease caused by the influenza A virus, which primarily affects birds but can sometimes affect mammals including humans. Wild aquatic birds are the primary host of the influenza A viru ...
(HPAI) outbreak, with mass mortality involving 11,400 killed in the 2021/22 winter, or about 31% of the population. The two subsequent breeding seasons were however highly productive, allowing the population to recover to close to its former levels by the 2023/24 winter.
Folklore
The natural history of the barnacle goose was long surrounded with a legend claiming that they were born of driftwood:
Nature produces ernacaeagainst Nature in the most extraordinary way. They are like marsh geese but somewhat smaller. They are produced from fir timber tossed along the sea, and are at first like gum. Afterwards they hang down by their beaks as if they were a seaweed attached to the timber, and are surrounded by shells in order to grow more freely. Having thus in process of time been clothed with a strong coat of feathers, they either fall into the water or fly freely away into the air. They derived their food and growth from the sap of the wood or from the sea, by a secret and most wonderful process of alimentation. I have frequently seen, with my own eyes, more than a thousand of these small bodies of birds, hanging down on the sea-shore from one piece of timber, enclosed in their shells, and already formed. They do not breed and lay eggs like other birds, nor do they ever hatch any eggs, nor do they seem to build nests in any corner of the earth.
The legend was widely repeated in, for example, Vincent of Beauvais
Vincent of Beauvais ( or ; ; c. 1264) was a Dominican friar at the Cistercian monastery of Royaumont Abbey, France. He is known mostly for his '' Speculum Maius'' (''Great mirror''), a major work of compilation that was widely read in the Middl ...
's great encyclopedia. However, it was also criticized by other medieval authors, including Albertus Magnus
Albertus Magnus ( 1200 – 15 November 1280), also known as Saint Albert the Great, Albert of Swabia, Albert von Bollstadt, or Albert of Cologne, was a German Dominican friar, philosopher, scientist, and bishop, considered one of the great ...
.
This belief may be related to the fact that these geese were never seen in summer, when they were supposedly developing underwater (they were actually breeding in remote Arctic regions) in the form of barnacle
Barnacles are arthropods of the subclass (taxonomy), subclass Cirripedia in the subphylum Crustacean, Crustacea. They are related to crabs and lobsters, with similar Nauplius (larva), nauplius larvae. Barnacles are exclusively marine invertebra ...
s—which came to have the name "barnacle" because of this legend.
Based on these legends—indeed, the legends may have been invented for this purpose[—some Irish clerics considered barnacle goose flesh to be acceptable fast day food, a practice that was criticized by ]Giraldus Cambrensis
Gerald of Wales (; ; ; ) was a Cambro-Norman priest and historian. As a royal clerk to the king and two archbishops, he travelled widely and wrote extensively. He studied and taught in France and visited Rome several times, meeting the Pope. He ...
, a Welsh author:
...Bishops and religious men (''viri religiosi'') in some parts of Ireland do not scruple to dine off these birds at the time of fasting, because they are not flesh nor born of flesh... But in so doing they are led into sin. For if anyone were to eat of the leg of our first parent (Adam) although he was not born of flesh, that person could not be adjudged innocent of eating meat.
At the Fourth Council of the Lateran
The Fourth Council of the Lateran or Lateran IV was convoked by Pope Innocent III in April 1213 and opened at the Lateran Palace in Rome on 11 November 1215. Due to the great length of time between the council's convocation and its meeting, m ...
(1215), Pope Innocent III
Pope Innocent III (; born Lotario dei Conti di Segni; 22 February 1161 – 16 July 1216) was head of the Catholic Church and ruler of the Papal States from 8 January 1198 until his death on 16 July 1216.
Pope Innocent was one of the most power ...
explicitly prohibited the eating of these geese during Lent, arguing that despite their unusual reproduction, they lived and fed like ducks and so were of the same nature as other birds.[
The question of the nature of barnacle geese also came up as a matter of Jewish dietary law in the ]Halakha
''Halakha'' ( ; , ), also Romanization of Hebrew, transliterated as ''halacha'', ''halakhah'', and ''halocho'' ( ), is the collective body of Judaism, Jewish religious laws that are derived from the Torah, Written and Oral Torah. ''Halakha'' is ...
, and Rabbeinu Tam
Jacob ben Meir (1100 – 9 June 1171 (4 Tammuz)), best known as Rabbeinu Tam (), was one of the most renowned Ashkenazi Jewish rabbis and leading French Tosafists, a leading '' halakhic'' authority in his generation, and a grandson of Rashi. K ...
(1100–71) determined that they were kosher
(also or , ) is a set of dietary laws dealing with the foods that Jewish people are permitted to eat and how those foods must be prepared according to Jewish law. Food that may be consumed is deemed kosher ( in English, ), from the Ashke ...
(even if born of trees) and should be slaughtered following the normal prescriptions for birds.
In one Jewish legend, the barnacle goose is purported to have its beak forever attached to the tree from which it grew just as the Adne Sadeh is fixed to the earth by its navel cord. The mythical barnacle tree, believed in the Middle Ages
In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the 5th to the late 15th centuries, similarly to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire and ...
to have barnacles that opened to reveal geese, may have a similar origin to the other legends already mentioned.
File:Barnacle Geese Fac simile of an Engraving on Wood from the Cosmographie Universelle of Munster folio Basle 1552.png, Goose barnacles
Goose barnacles, also called percebes, turtle-claw barnacles, stalked barnacles, gooseneck barnacles, are filter-feeding crustaceans that live attached to hard surfaces of rocks and flotsam in the ocean intertidal zone. Goose barnacles formerl ...
turning into barnacle geese in Sebastian Münster
Sebastian Münster (20 January 1488 – 26 May 1552) was a German cartographer and cosmographer. He also was a Christian Hebraist scholar who taught as a professor at the University of Basel. His well-known work, the highly accurate world map, ...
's 1552 '' Cosmographia''
File:Vitkindad gås (Branta leucopsis) - Ystad-2017.jpg, Autumn migration in Sweden
Sweden, formally the Kingdom of Sweden, is a Nordic countries, Nordic country located on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. It borders Norway to the west and north, and Finland to the east. At , Sweden is the largest Nordic count ...
File:A flock of barnacle geese in Helsinki, Finland.jpg, A flock feeding at Helsinki
Helsinki () is the Capital city, capital and most populous List of cities and towns in Finland, city in Finland. It is on the shore of the Gulf of Finland and is the seat of southern Finland's Uusimaa region. About people live in the municipali ...
, Finland
References
Not in use-->
External links
RSPB Birds by Name: Barnacle Goose
*
*
*
*
*
*
{{Authority control
barnacle goose
The barnacle goose (''Branta leucopsis'') is a species of goose that belongs to the genus ''Branta'' of black geese, which contains species with extensive black in the plumage, distinguishing them from the grey ''Anser (genus), Anser'' species. D ...
barnacle goose
The barnacle goose (''Branta leucopsis'') is a species of goose that belongs to the genus ''Branta'' of black geese, which contains species with extensive black in the plumage, distinguishing them from the grey ''Anser (genus), Anser'' species. D ...
Birds of the Arctic
Birds of Scandinavia
Birds of Iceland
Birds of Europe
barnacle goose
The barnacle goose (''Branta leucopsis'') is a species of goose that belongs to the genus ''Branta'' of black geese, which contains species with extensive black in the plumage, distinguishing them from the grey ''Anser (genus), Anser'' species. D ...
barnacle goose
The barnacle goose (''Branta leucopsis'') is a species of goose that belongs to the genus ''Branta'' of black geese, which contains species with extensive black in the plumage, distinguishing them from the grey ''Anser (genus), Anser'' species. D ...