Pink Footed Goose

Their name derived by their distinctive, deep rose-pink legs and feet. Physically and vocally resembling their slightly larger relatives, they are more attractive and different behaviorally. Pink footed geese are graceful geese with roundish heads and relatively thick, short necks. Their bill is short, pink, triangular shaped, with an intensive black base and with pink sometimes restricted to a small, narrow band behind the black terminal nail. Their heads are dark and their forenecks contrast with their pale pinkish-gray body. Pink footed geese frequently nest on knolls or rock outcroppings that are more easily defended and provide panoramic views. Vociferous ganders on elevated sites can sometimes repel predators as large as Arctic foxes, especially if assisted by their mates. Pink footed geese breed in three separate localities with a rather restricted range. They nest in central Iceland, in Thjorsaver, a 32-square-mile oasis of vegetation in the lava desert. Icelandic breeders sometimes seek sites as high as 2,300 feet on inaccessible slopes, cliff edges or atop rocky pinnacles in river gorges to escape terrestrial predators. They remain the most numerous goose of Svalbard (Spitsbergen) where the birds are partial to low, flat terrain or grassy snow-free slopes that may be adjacent to bird-cliffs, as well as rock outcrops and low cliffs. A small population of a thousand or more pairs breeds in eastern Greenland. They may be used Iceland sites for 30-40 years. They migrate from Iceland to eastern Greenland where the migrants mix with Greenland birds in June to forage on tundra. Greenland-breeding geese depart in early September to interior Iceland to join the local birds, and by October commence the southeast passage to wintering grounds in Scotland and northern England. Svalbard geese stage in Denmark in early to mid-October prior to moving on o wintering quarters in the coastal lowlands of the Netherlands and western Germany. The geese forage in salt marshes and grasslands, or stubble fields (barley and oats) as well as potato and sugar-beet fields.