Bar-headed Goose – Anser indicus

The Bar-headed Goose is a very common goose in it's native breeding range of Central Asia. In the UK it is a feral species that is known to breed here. I have never seen one before and I found it a fascinating encounter. They were very striking in appearance.

They migrate by flying over the Andes which in it'self makes this an interesting bird. They are thought to be one of the worlds highest fliers and travel in the Jet Stream when on migration.

There is no way of knowing where this pair came from but I would have thought it possible that they could breed amngst the flock of Canada Geese that they seemed so comfortable with. According to Wikipedia they are commonly kept in captivity and escapees are perhaps starting to become more established in the UK.

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They were not particularly worried about me and seemed very at ease with the 30 Canada Geese that they were with. However they were not in a park environment, they were very much living and feeding in the wild and free to come and go as they wanted. I think they have made a good addition to my sightings, photos and Blog entries for this year and even though the Birdguides web site classes them as a non rare bird, I certainly don't, as in 50 years of Bird observations in the UK this is my first sighting.

3 responses to “Bar-headed Goose – Anser indicus”

Paul

March 5, 2009 at 8:19 am

Really striking markings, love that second to last shot. I’ve not even heard of this one before let alone seen one!
Paul.

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paul chivers

May 12, 2009 at 7:32 pm

can i just say i spotted one of these today in newport and uploaded my own pics to birguides, i also agree with you with regards to their classification,
also when i realised what i was seeing i checked for rings and although it doesnt indicate a wild bird most tht i see daily are ringed which led me to believe it was a truly wild loner lol
obviously the next thing that crossed my mind and is still fascinating me is the thought this bird could possibly have traveled thousands of miles to appear as it did today…
a lovely sighting and really put a smile on my face 🙂

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Brenda Gilchrist

April 15, 2010 at 7:48 pm

Came upon a single bar headed goose in Poole Park today, what a beautiful bird, it took a little bit of research to identify what i had seen, the bird did have a ring on its leg,so where did it come from? and will it still be there tomorrow? i can’t wait to find out.

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