Bean Goose Call MP3s
A lower, more nasal honk than its greylag cousins, useful for callers working taiga-edge wetlands and stubble fields across northern Europe.
Also known as
Recordings (4)
About this species
The Bean Goose (Anser fabalis) is a large grazing goose of the Anatidae family of around 78 cm — darker-headed with an orange band across an otherwise black bill. It winters on northern arable fields and floodplains in disciplined flocks.
Its reedy, low honking is deeper and more nasal than that of its relatives. It grazes grass and clover and gleans spilt grain and potatoes from harvested fields. Intensely social, it travels and feeds in large, vocal flocks and roosts communally. Wintering flocks are a hallmark of the European cold season, shifting between northern breeding grounds and the milder fields of the south.
Legal use
The Bean Goose is split into distinct populations with very different hunting realities: the Taiga Bean Goose has faced hunting moratoriums in parts of its Fennoscandian range (including a multi-year total closure in Finland that was later partially reopened in a designated zone under strict harvest reporting) due to population declines, while Tundra Bean Geese are hunted more routinely in designated zones and seasons in countries such as Finland, Sweden, and Denmark under EU Birds Directive provisions, with some regional exceptions (for example, one wintering area in Denmark has special protection from hunting). It is essentially absent from hunting traditions in the Americas. Given the patchwork of moratoriums, quotas, and reporting rules tied to subspecies and locality, check our full country-by-country disclaimer before treating this as a straightforward game species anywhere.