Red-necked goose
| Red-necked goose | ||||||||||||
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Brooding Red-necked Goose on the Taimyr Peninsula |
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| Systematics | ||||||||||||
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| Scientific name | ||||||||||||
| Branta ruficollis | ||||||||||||
| ( Pallas , 1769) |
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The Red-breasted Goose ( Branta ruficollis ) is within the real goose (Anserini) at the sea geese ( Branta ). Like all geese , it belongs to the duck bird family (Anserinae). It is closely related to the brent goose ( Branta bernicla ).
Appearance
The red-necked goose is the most colorful of the sea geese. The plumage is black with clearly recognizable white contour lines. As the name suggests, the chest is colored rust-red. Here, too, the red color fields are well separated from each other and from the surrounding black by white lines between them. The flank strips are white. The back and belly are black, while the upper and lower tails are white. Red-necked geese also have a short beak and a relatively thick neck. Males and females look very similar. Both grow to be around 55 cm long and weigh 1 to 1.5 kg. The red-necked goose is noticeably narrow-winged in flight. Two light-colored wing bars are clearly visible. Young birds are less contrasty in color than adults.
The moulting of non-breeding geese begins around July 15th. In breeding red-necked geese, it begins a few days later. Red-necked geese are unable to fly for several weeks during this time. The full moult is usually completed around August 20th. At this time the young geese are also fledged. With them, however, the partial moulting of their youthful dress continues even after they have fledged.
voice
The characteristic call of the red-necked goose is a shrill, two-syllable staccator call, which is onomatopoeic with kä-kwa. or ki-kwi ... can be paraphrased. Red-necked geese who feel threatened and who signal their readiness to attack call out shrill , monosyllabic räk , kwai or kwä with their heads stretched out . They lure the young with a deep go or ga .
nutrition
Red-necked geese feed on grass , especially samphire , today increasingly on wheat and maize , the young birds also on insects .
habitat
As a migratory bird, the red-necked goose migrates between its breeding area in the European Arctic, especially western Siberia, and its wintering areas in Central Asia, especially Kazakhstan , southern Iraq and in south- eastern Europe, especially on the western Black Sea coast . It is also less common in Western Europe, where isolated animals are often found together with Brent geese. These animals are often captive refugees who have escaped their owners. However, individual red-necked geese also belong to the breeding populations of Russia's arctic tundras that usually overwinter in Bulgaria, Romania and Ukraine.
The red-necked goose's main wintering area is Lake Durankulak (north of Kamen Brjag ) on the western Black Sea coast. Other important wintering places can be found in Azerbaijan . The wintering area there is pretty much delimited by the 2 ° degree January isotherm. A small part of the population also winters in northeast Greece. Red-necked geese generally only use a few wintering areas. In addition to suitable grazing areas, these must also have fresh water and quiet overnight accommodation. The concentration of the total population of the red-necked goose in relatively few wintering locations contributes to the endangerment of the species. Disturbances at these points - for example due to oil spills or intensified hunting - affect the entire population.
Red-necked geese have a very fixed daily rhythm in their winter quarters. Before sunrise, the first flocks of the red-necked geese fly up to move to the next freshwater spot. The departure usually takes 40 to 45 minutes. It usually ends with the departure of the main flock, which can consist of several thousand red-necked geese. The return flight to the overnight accommodation begins immediately after sunset. Both the morning and the evening change between overnight and pasture places is determined by the brightness. It starts at 600 to 700 lux .
Reproduction
Once mated, males and females stay together for life. The breeding season begins in the second half of June and therefore quite late for geese. Interestingly enough, they also often breed near falcon nests such as peregrine falcons or bumblebee hawks . Red-necked geese also breed more frequently in the vicinity of large gull colonies such as ice gulls and herring gulls, albeit significantly less often than in the vicinity of raptor nests. Ornithologists suspect that both observations are related: Rearing the brood near the birds of prey nest protects their offspring from the birds of prey themselves, as they never hunt in the immediate vicinity of their nest. In addition, the birds of prey vehemently drive possible predators such as the arctic fox from their breeding area - and thus also from the breeding area of the red necked goose. Since, for example, the falcons start breeding quite late, the red-necked geese have "copied" this behavior and also breed later.
The colonies are relatively small. They do not contain more than 20 to 30 pairs, but usually only five to seven pairs. Their distribution in the breeding area is partly determined by the biological distribution of the birds of prey.
Nests are usually made in remote places with rocky subsoil. A hollow created by the female is lined with grass, lichen and moss and padded with special down feathers . The approximately 4 to 5 light green eggs are incubated by the female alone, who only leaves the nest during this time for a short foraging for food. As with all geese, the male does not take part in the breeding business, but guards the clutch against predators and unpopular conspecifics. After about 25 days, the young hatch, they leave the nest in a short time and can feed themselves. After the young geese hatch, the families form flocks and spend most of their time on and around the water. Both the adult geese and the young geese dive well in danger.
Danger
Presumably due to the use of DDT in the 1950s and 1960s and the associated decline in Arctic birds of prey (under whose protection the red-necked goose breeds) and massive hunting, the population of this species had declined dramatically. Only comprehensive protection of the species along the entire migration route was able to halt the decline and bring about a recovery. The total number of birds is estimated by the IUCN at almost 40,000, but different counts come to very different results. The species is classified as "endangered". Red-necked geese are now considered to be an endangered species of birds, particularly through (illegal) hunting in their winter areas, but also through the destruction of their habitat, and are protected by the Washington Convention on the Protection of Species and as a species in Appendix I of the EU Birds Directive .
supporting documents
Individual evidence
- ↑ Uspenski, p. 25.
- ^ Hans-Heiner Bergmann, Hans-Wolfgang Helb, Sabine Baumann; The voices of the birds of Europe - 474 bird portraits with 914 calls and chants on 2,200 sonograms. Aula-Verlag, Wiesbaden 2008, ISBN 978-3-89104-710-1 , p. 36.
- ^ Sächsisches Landesamt für Umwelt und Geologie (Ed.): Wild geese and swans in Saxony - occurrence, behavior and management. Dresden 2006, publication as part of the public relations work of the Saxon State Office for Environment and Geology, p. 19.
- ↑ Uspenski, p. 15.
- ↑ Uspenski, p. 25.
- ↑ Uspenski, p. 16.
- ↑ Uspenski, p. 16.
literature
- Hans-Heiner Bergmann , Helmut Kruckenberg, Volkhard Wille: Wild geese - travelers between wilderness and pastureland. G. Braun Verlag, Karlsruhe 2006, ISBN 3-7650-8321-6 .
- J. Madsen, G. Cracknell, Tony Fox: Goose Populations of the Western Palearctic. Wetlands International, Wageningen 1999, ISBN 87-7772-437-2 .
- Erich Rutschke: Wild geese, way of life - protection - use. Parey, Berlin 1997, ISBN 3-8263-8478-4 .
- SM Uspenski: The wild geese of Northern Europe. Reprint of the 1st edition from 1965. Westarp Wissenschaften-Verlagsgesellschaft, Hohenwarsleben 2003, ISBN 3-89432-756-1 .
Web links
- Branta ruficollis in the endangered Red List species the IUCN 2008. Posted by: BirdLife International, 2008. Accessed January 31 of 2009.
- Videos, photos and sound recordings of Branta ruficollis in the Internet Bird Collection