Bar-headed goose

Voice

A clear, low, nasal honking, aang-aang, more tuneful and musical than the raucous calls of Greylag. In flight a repeated disyllabic hong-ha. Feral birds can be heard all year, most often on flights between roost and feeding fields in the morning and evening.

Identification

A pale grey goose with a snow-white head and neck crossed by two black horseshoe bars over the hind crown. A white line runs down the side of the neck to the shoulder. Bill and legs are yellow to orange with a black nail. Juveniles lack the bars, show a grey crown and a dark bill base, but stay just as pale.

Confusion species

No European goose resembles the adult. Juveniles, with their pale plumage, briefly recall a young Snow Goose or a domestic goose; then check the grey crown, the yellow bill without a grinning patch and the pale, low-contrast wings. Hybrids with Greylag Goose occur and can be genuinely deceptive.

Habitat

In Europe on grassland and arable beside lakes and rivers, almost always with Greylag and Barnacle Geese, and also on town lakes and in parks. In its native range it breeds colonially beside high-altitude mountain lakes on the Tibetan Plateau, well above the treeline.

Range and movements

In the wild it breeds in central Asia, from Kyrgyzstan and Mongolia to Tibet, and winters on the Indian subcontinent, crossing the Himalaya at extreme altitude. All European birds are escapes or their descendants, with small breeding groups in the Netherlands, Germany, Belgium and Sweden. In Spain only escaped individuals occur.

• Resident
• Breeding (summer)
• Winter
• Passage
• Migration direction
• dark = core range, pale = thinly spread

Where and when to look

Possible all year, but easiest from June to September at moulting sites along the big rivers and in areas holding many Greylags. Try the Delta, the IJssel floodplains and the Veluwe border lakes. Scan mixed goose flocks for a conspicuously pale bird; the moment it lifts its head the matter is settled.

Conservation status

In its native range the species is numerous and broadly stable, though avian influenza, disturbance at breeding colonies and abstraction of water from highland lakes are local threats. The feral European population stays small but persists; hybridisation with Greylag Goose is the main objection to its presence here.