Bean Goose
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| Anser fabalis (Latham, 1787) |
The Bean Goose (Anser fabalis) is a medium-sized to large goose breeding in northern Europe and Asia. It is migratory and winters further south in Europe and Asia.
The bill is black at the base and tip, with an orange band across the middle; the legs and feet are also bright orange.
The upper wing-coverts are dark brown, as in the White-fronted Goose (Anser albifrons) and the Lesser White-fronted Goose (A. erythropus), but differing from these in having narrow white fringes to the feathers.
It gets its English and scientific names from its habit in the past of grazing in bean field stubbles in winter (Latin faba, a bean).
There are five subspecies, with complex variation in body size and bill size and pattern; generally, size increases from north to south and from west to east. Some ornithologists split them into two species depending on the breeding habitat, whether in forest bogs on the subarctic taiga, or on the arctic tundra. Considerable intergradation exists between the subspecies within each of the two groups, but much less between the two groups [citation needed].
- Taiga Bean Goose (Anser fabalis sensu stricto)
- Anser fabalis fabalis. Scandinavia east to the Urals. Large; bill long and narrow, with broad orange band. Anser fabalis fabalis is one of the species to which the Agreement on the Conservation of African-Eurasian Migratory Waterbirds (AEWA) applies.
- Anser fabalis johanseni. West Siberian taiga. Large; bill long and narrow, with narrow orange band.
- Anser fabalis middendorffii. East Siberian taiga. Very large; bill long and stout, with narrow orange band.
- Tundra Bean Goose (Anser serrirostris, if treated as a distinct species)
- Anser fabalis rossicus. Northern Russian tundra east to the Taimyr Peninsula. Small; bill short and stubby, with narrow orange band. Anser fabalis rossicus is one of the species to which the Agreement on the Conservation of African-Eurasian Migratory Waterbirds (AEWA) applies.
- Anser fabalis serrirostris. East Siberian tundra. Large; bill long and stout, with narrow orange band.
The voice is a loud honking, higher pitched in the smaller subspecies.
The closely related Pink-footed Goose (A. brachyrhynchus) has the bill short, bright pink in the middle, and the feet also pink, the upper wing-coverts being nearly of the same bluish-grey as in the Greylag Goose. In size and bill structure, it is very similar to Anser fabalis rossicus, and in the past was often treated as a sixth subspecies of Bean Goose.
[edit] Status in Britain
The Bean Goose is a rare winter visitor to Britain. There are two regular wintering flocks of Taiga Bean Goose, in the Yare Valley, Norfolk and the Avon Valley, Scotland. A formerly regular flock in Dumfries and Galloway no longer occurs there. Tundra Bean Goose has no regular wintering sites, but is found in small groups among other grey goose species - among the most regular locaities are WWT Slimbridge, Gloucestershire and Holkham Marshes, Norfolk.
[edit] Photo Image links
[edit] References
- BirdLife International (2004). Anser fabalis. 2006 IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. IUCN 2006. Retrieved on 11 May 2006. Database entry includes justification for why this species is of least concern
- Sangster, George and Gerald J. Oreel (1996) Progress in taxonomy of Taiga and Tundra Bean Geese Dutch Birding 18(6): 310-316
