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Canada Goose | Branta canadensis
Grote Canadese gans | Barnacla canadiense grande
The Canada Goose is a large, grey-brown goose with a black head and neck and a white chinstrap. It is not native to the Caribbean: the birds that appear here are vagrants from North America, and some records may involve escaped or feral birds. Records come mainly from the north of the region, with the Bahamas foremost.
Voice
A loud nasal a-honk, mainly in flight; flocks keep up a continuous honking.
Recording: Christian Kerihuel — CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 · converted to mono · xeno-canto
Identification
75–110 cm; size varies greatly between subspecies. Head and long neck are black, with a broad white band from the throat across the cheeks. Body and wings are grey-brown with pale feather edges, the breast paler. Belly, undertail and a band above the black tail are white. Bill and legs are black. The sexes are alike. Flight is on slow, powerful beats, often in V-formation or in lines.
Confusion species
No other goose in the region has a black neck with a white chinstrap. Cackling Goose Branta hutchinsii, formerly treated as the same species, is smaller, with a shorter neck and a stubbier bill; at a distance size alone is not always reliable. Feral or hybrid domestic geese can show aberrant patterns.
Habitat
In the region at ponds and lakes with grassy banks, on grassland and pasture, and on golf courses, parks and airfields. It grazes on grasses and herbs and up-ends in shallow water.
Where the bird is most at home, classified by the vegetation types of the Caribbean.
Range and movements
A vagrant to the region, with most records from the Bahamas; also from the Cayman Islands, Cuba, Jamaica, Puerto Rico and the Turks and Caicos Islands. In the Bahamas and the Cayman Islands birds have also been recorded staying for long periods. Breeds in North America, from northern Canada into the United States, and winters south to northern Mexico; introduced and feral in Europe and New Zealand, among other places.
How and when to look
With a record in the region, the origin and behaviour of the bird matter: tame or semi-tame birds at parks and golf courses may be escapes, while wary birds in winter are more likely to be wild vagrants.
Conservation status
Not threatened globally. In the Caribbean a vagrant; it does not breed in the region.
Scientific name
Branta canadensis | (Linnaeus, 1758)
Linnaeus described the species in 1758 as Anas canadensis; 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. canadensis is New Latin for 'from Canada', after the North American breeding range. The specimen the first description was based on came from Quebec City, Canada.