A year of my nature hunting: Post 390 - Brilliant Black Brant amongst Beautifully Graceful Brent Geese

Friday 19 February 2016

Post 390 - Brilliant Black Brant amongst Beautifully Graceful Brent Geese

Brent Geese (Branta bernicla)

Hey everyone, today's post 390 and as you'll know, earlier in the week I went to Spurn Point which is about a two and a half hour drive from where we live. It's such a good place to go to, there's so many reserves just packed into the small area, that you're bound to find something unusual or interesting. When I did my post on my trip to Spurn I mentioned I saw a flock of Brent Geese at Kilnsea Wetlands, a new one for me, but amongst them was one that I wasn't expecting to see either, a Black Brant! As there weren't any other birders around to confirm I wasn't 100% sure but I was pleased when I saw this tweet from today:

Black Brant with Brent flock, 300 Wigeon and 11 Goldeneye kilnsea wetland #spurnbirds
— Spurn Bird Obs (@spurnbirdobs) February 19, 2016

It was a tricky thing to get photos of as the birds were doing what they do, feeding, swimming about and flying off quite often. I didn't work out what kept disturbing them. I looked back through my photos and I did manage to get a reasonable shot of it.

So, what did I found out about not only the Black Brant, but Brent Geese in general?

The Black Brant - centre of picture

Well, firstly, there seems to be about 560,000 Brent Geese worldwide, while there are only 115,000 Black Brants.

I'm not 100% sure how many Black Brants there are in the UK, but there are about 100,000 of the normal Brent Geese.

The Black Brant is basically a subspecies of Brent Goose, sometimes called the Pacific Brent Goose.

Black Brants usually live in Alaska where they breed and move to Baja, California for the Winter. They are a scarce visitor to the UK

The Brent Goose is an Amber Status bird in the UK, but is doing better in Europe and Globally.

They almost became extinct in the 1930's because there main food source 'Eelgrass' became almost extinct, too, with disease.

There were quite a few at Kilnsea

Nowadays, Brent Geese have moved a bit inland to find their food, looking for agricultural land for other grasses and winter-cereals.

They are found, only Wintering on the Coasts of North, East and South England as well as most of Ireland's coast too.

It's about 60cm long with a wingspan of 115cm, with both Male and Female birds weighing quite a hefty 1.5 kilograms!

They do seem to be declining, though, for example, the Black Brant alone has declined from about 200,000 to what it is now.

This is because of reasons such as hunting, foxes and diseases. In fact, of 6 fitted with radio tags in 2002, only one survived because of these pressures. One was found in the larder of an Inuit hunter.