All species › Waterfowl › Ducks, geese and swans › Red-Breasted Goose
Red-Breasted Goose | Branta ruficollis
Roodhalsgans | Barnacla cuellirroja
The smallest and most colourful goose in the world: black, white and chestnut, like a painted decoy. Red-breasted Goose winters almost entirely on the western shore of the Black Sea and reaches the region only as a vagrant, usually among Greater White-Fronted Geese.
Voice
High, sharp and disyllabic, kee-kwee or kik-wik, shriller than any other goose and easy to pick out in a flock of Greater White-Fronted Geese.
Recording: Grégoire Chauvot — CC0 · converted to mono · xeno-canto
Identification
Small, compact and short-billed, with a thick neck and a rounded head. The plumage is a striking pattern of black, white and rusty red: a reddish-brown cheek patch edged white, a rusty-red foreneck and breast bordered by narrow white lines, a white flank stripe and a white rear. Back and belly are black. At distance and in flight the bird looks strikingly dark, with a white flank stripe and white rear. Juveniles are duller, with less red and several narrow white wing bars.
Confusion species
Unmistakable in a good view. In flight or against the light it may recall a Brant (Branta bernicla), which has plain black forequarters and a grey-brown back without white lines, or a Barnacle Goose (Branta leucopsis) with a white face and grey back.
Habitat
Winters on winter wheat, stubble and short grassland, often far from water, roosting on lakes and lagoons. In the region almost always among Greater White-Fronted or Greylag Geese in marshes and on nearby fields.
Where the bird is most at home, classified by the habitats of North Africa and the Middle East.
Range and movements
Six or seven records in Israel, including four birds in the Hula Valley in winter 1982/83 and one in 2002. In Iraq the species formerly wintered in small numbers among the Greater White-Fronted Geese of Mesopotamia; recent data are largely lacking. Exceptional elsewhere in the region. Breeds on the tundra of the Taymyr, Gydan and Yamal peninsulas in northern Siberia and winters mainly in Romania and Bulgaria, in smaller numbers in Ukraine, Turkey and around the Caspian.
How and when to look
In winter, scan flocks of Greater White-Fronted Geese in northern Iraq, the Hula Valley or the Mesopotamian marshes. A Red-breasted Goose stands out among the grey geese by its black-and-white flank stripe and high call. Bear in mind that escapes from collections occur.
Conservation status
Vulnerable. A vagrant to the region, with a handful of records in Israel and formerly a small, irregular wintering population in Iraq. The world population gathers in winter at a handful of roosts by the Black Sea and suffers from hunting, disturbance and changes in agriculture.
Scientific name
Branta ruficollis | (Pallas, 1769)
Pallas described the species in 1769 as Anser ruficollis; because it was later moved to another genus, the author and year stand in brackets. The genus Branta was introduced in 1769 by Scopoli. Branta is a Latinised form of Old Norse brandgás, 'burnt goose', that is, black goose. ruficollis is Latin, from rufus 'red' and collum 'neck': 'red-necked'. The specimen the first description was based on came from the lower Ob River.