Branta ruficollis

The red-breasted Brant is a small goose with a body length of 53-56 cm and a wingspan of 110-125 cm. The female goose weighs 1200 g. Male geese weigh 1300-1600 grams and live 15 years. But it is the most colorful of all geese. The feathers of the male and female birds are similar, the irises are dark chestnut brown, the crown of the head and the back of the neck are black, there is an oval white spot before the eyes, a chestnut cheek spot behind the eyes, surrounded by a white border, the chest is also chestnut red, and the outside is also surrounded by a narrow white border, which runs along the side of the neck and connects with the white side of the cheek, very bright and striking. The wings and the entire upper body are black, with two white stripes on the wings. The abdomen is mainly black, the flanks are white, and the underbelly and overlying and undertail feathers are also white. The mouth, tarsometatarsus, feet and claws are dark brown.
Size measurement: Body length 530-560

Origin: Armenia, Austria, Bulgaria, Croatia, Greece, Iran (Islamic Republic of), Iraq, Kazakhstan, Macedonia, Moldova, Montenegro, Romania, Serbia, Turkey, Ukraine.
Travelers: Azerbaijan, Belarus, Belgium, Bosnia and Herzegovina, China, Cyprus, Denmark, Egypt, Finland, France, Georgia, Germany, Greenland, Hungary, India, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Latvia, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Slovakia, Spain, Svalbard and Jan Mayen, Sweden.
Origin uncertain: Afghanistan, Kyrgyzstan, Syrian Arab Republic, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan.
They prefer to live in bays, harbors and estuaries, and their breeding habitat is mainly tundra or shrub tundra covered by moss and lichen, especially in the higher and drier areas of the tundra, or the tundra with sparse shrubs near the water. Winter occurs mostly in areas around lakes and reservoirs where alkali-tolerant plants grow, but also in surrounding low-lying saltwater lakes and coastal areas, and occasionally in agricultural fields.

Red-breasted Goose (no subspecies) is a small wild goose.

Brats like to form groups, but do not mix with other geese and ducks, but live alone in large groups, sometimes up to hundreds of individuals. They had a lively disposition, and when they lived with each other, they were always noisy, extremely noisy, and the sound could be transmitted far away. Good at swimming and diving, flying speed is also very fast, flying from the surface of the water, is always constantly chirping. At night, they usually live on the water, in shallow water near the water, or on the beach. Every day they fly to the grassland in groups at dawn to feed, return to the water at noon to rest, drink and eat sand, and sometimes roost in the feeding ground at night. When the climate is bad, especially when there is a storm, they often take shelter in the reeds. The formation of the group is very irregular when flying, sometimes flying in a diagonal line, sometimes in a "V" shape, very irregular. Whenever they want to land on the surface of the water, they always circle in groups over the surface of the water for a few times, and then almost simultaneously turn the direction, respectively, like arrows, falling quickly to the surface of the water, and then gather into a dense group on the surface of the water.

Brants mainly feed on buds, leaves and stems of grass or aquatic plants, as well as roots and plant seeds, and sometimes eat wheat seedlings and other crops in winter. Often foraging in groups, while the head is rapidly moving, and constantly making a "purring" sound like a pig.

The red-breasted Brats are typical migratory birds, leaving their breeding grounds in the Arctic tundra from mid-September to the end of September every year, and migrating to the Black Sea, Caspian Sea and Aral Sea in southeastern Europe to winter. Migration often integrates large groups, flies almost constantly during the day, and only lands in the evening to rest and feed in lakes and other waters, often making high calls and extremely noisy. From mid-May to the end of May, it moves in large groups from the wintering grounds to the breeding grounds, but the spring migration group is significantly smaller than the autumn migration group.

Barnacle geese usually move to their breeding grounds in early to mid-June, when the ice and snow on the breeding grounds have melted and plants begin to sprout. Pairing may have been formed in the wintering grounds, and courtship behavior is somewhat highly ritualized, including nodding each other into the water, the male facing the female with his upright head, then spreading his wings, raising his tail feathers vertically, stretching his neck, and calling. Upon arrival, nesting begins, usually in groups of 4-5 pairs near steep banks, weedy and scrub streams and canyons, and in hollows on sloping ground. The nests are built on relatively open, dry, higher ground, without any cover, extremely exposed, often visible from a distance, and sometimes close to the nests of predators such as gulls and birds of prey, so the rate of nest loss is very high. The nest is made of hay, etc., with some feathering in it.

Barnlings begin laying eggs in mid-June, laying 3-8 eggs per brood, occasionally 9. The eggs are olive green and pale yellowish-white in color, and incubation is carried out by the female alone, with the male serving as a guard near the nest during both the laying and brooding period. When the female leaves the nest to feed, she covers the nest with feathers and grass. If an intruder comes, the parent bird will sing loudly, sound anxious, and assume a threatening posture, and sometimes even make a posture of preparing to attack the intruder without abandoning the nest. Incubation period is 23-25 days.

The chicks are already feathered after hatching and belong to early adult birds. When the chicks hatch, the male birds also join in the care and defense of the chicks, and together with the female birds to lead the chicks to forage in dense vegetation, in late July to early August, the adult birds begin to moult, the time is about 15-20 days. It takes 2-3 years for young birds to reach sexual maturity.

In January 2003, the population was 33,600, compared with 52,800 and 32,100 in 2004 and 2005, respectively, for an average total of 38,500. The 2006 recalculation was 37,000, and the revised average here is retained as a minimum estimate. However, the total number was 40,800 in the spring of 2008, 44,300 in the winter, and 56,860 in the fall of 2010. Endangered because of massive habitat destruction.

Listed on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species (IUCN) ver3.1:2016 - Vulnerable (VU).

Listed in Appendices I, II and III of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) 2019 edition Appendix II.

Listed in China's "National Key Protected Wildlife List" (February 5, 2021) Level 2.

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