Barnacle Goose Call MP3s
A sharp, yapping call quite unlike other geese — useful for birders, guides, and anyone working under licensed goose-management programs.
Also known as
Recordings (3)
About this species
A large grazing goose of the Anatidae family measuring roughly 68 cm, the Barnacle Goose (Branta leucopsis) is unmistakable — crisply pied with a creamy-white face set against a black neck and breast. It winters on coastal saltmarsh and machair, grazing in tight, noisy flocks.
Wintering flocks produce a yelping, dog-like chorus of short barks. It grazes grass, eelgrass and waste grain, often well away from open water. It feeds in dense, disciplined flocks that graze in step across the sward. In Greece and the southern Balkans it is chiefly a winter visitor to open fields and coastal wetlands.
Legal use
The Barnacle Goose is fully protected across most of its range — listed on Annex I of the EU Birds Directive and on Appendix II of the Bern Convention, and given full legal protection in Scotland, where its main wintering grounds are, with lethal control only possible under specific derogation licences (for example on Islay). The main exceptions are Iceland, which maintains an open autumn season (roughly late September to late November, taking around 2,000 birds a year), and parts of Russia, where the species breeds and where a limited hunt is reported to take place despite the bird's protected status under Russia's own Red Data Book — a legally ambiguous situation worth treating with extra caution rather than as a straightforwardly "open" season. Given that this species is non-quarry across the large majority of its wintering and breeding range, most customers will be using these calls for identification, scouting, or licensed management purposes rather than sport hunting — verify your local status in our full country-by-country disclaimer.