Canada goose

Voice

Noisy all year. The flight call is a disyllabic trumpeting ah-honk rising on the second note, deeper in the male than the female, and birds at nests hiss with the neck outstretched. Most in evidence at dawn as flocks leave the roost, and during territorial disputes from March to May.

Identification

Large and long-necked, with a black head and neck broken by a white chin patch running up behind the eye, brown back, pale flanks and a white rear with black tail. In flight note the slow heavy beat and the broad white band across the rump. Juveniles show a duller, less sharply cut cheek patch.

Confusion species

The real problem is Cackling Goose hutchinsii, which is far smaller with a short neck, steep rounded head and stubby bill, while Canada Goose looks long and horse-headed. Barnacle Goose is smaller with a wholly white face, black breast and silver-grey upperparts, and never shows the chinstrap pattern.

Habitat

Fresh water with grassy margins: town ponds, gravel pits, recreation lakes, canals, river floodplains and farmland. Moults in June and July in large flocks on safe open water. Nests on islands, banks and even green roofs, and grazes lawns, pasture and winter cereals wherever it is left undisturbed.

Range and movements

Native to North America, breeding from Alaska to Newfoundland and wintering across the United States. European birds are introduced: released in England from the seventeenth century, later in Sweden, Germany and the Netherlands. Resident in the Dutch interior; in Spain it is essentially absent apart from occasional escapes from collections.

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

Where and when to look

Easy in any month, but June and July repay the effort: look for moulting flocks on large waters such as the Nieuwkoopse Plassen or the Reeuwijkse Plassen. Come at first light as birds leave the roost for grassland, and measure every small individual against Cackling Goose.

Conservation status

European populations are still growing and spreading. The species causes grazing damage to grass and crops, enriches recreational waters and creates aviation hazards, and hybridisation with native geese is debated. In the Netherlands numbers are managed by shooting and by treating eggs, with limited effect on the overall trend.