Egyptian goose

Voice

Extremely vocal. The female gives a hoarse, rattling trumpet, heh-heh-heh-heh, the male a rasping hissing hzzh with the breast puffed out. Territorial disputes run to minutes of screaming abuse, audible all year but loudest from February to May, including after dark and over housing.

Identification

Long-legged and standing tall, with a pale buff neck, a dark patch around the eye and a round brown blotch in the centre of the breast. In flight it is startling: a huge white forewing with black primaries and a green speculum. Sexes look alike; juveniles lack the eye and breast patches and look duller and greyer.

Confusion species

Ruddy Shelduck is more compact and uniformly rusty orange, without eye or breast patch, with a black bill and a thin black neck ring on the male. Both flash the same white forewing, so decide on the head. Juvenile Egyptian Geese recall young Ruddy Shelduck, but the long pink legs and pale face settle it.

Habitat

Grassland and arable beside open water: floodplain meadows, gravel pits, canals, golf courses and town parks. Nests in old raptor nests, tree holes, on flat roofs and in nest boxes, often hundreds of metres from water. Outside the breeding season in family parties or loose flocks at moulting sites along the big rivers.

Range and movements

Native to sub-Saharan Africa and the Nile valley. The European population stems from escaped collection birds: from the Netherlands, where the first nests were found in the 1970s, it spread to Germany, Belgium, France and Britain. In Spain small feral populations hold on in Catalonia and Andalusia.

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

Where and when to look

Easy all year, but March is the most entertaining: territorial fights peak and the first pairs walk about with small goslings. Work floodplain meadows and town lakes early in the morning. On goose counts watch for the tall, upright stance, which picks the species out among Greylags at long range.

Conservation status

The species is still increasing in north-west Europe, though growth in the Netherlands is levelling off. It appears on the European list of invasive alien species, mainly for aggression towards other waterbirds and for occupying raptor nest sites. Management focuses on egg treatment and shooting; in Africa it remains common and unthreatened.