1. Home
  2. Home
  3. Species Profiles
  4. Greylag Goose (Anser anser)

Greylag Goose (Anser anser)

If you eat goose for dinner you can be reasonably sure that, despite a few genetic twists and turns, your meal was essentially a Greylag Goose in life. This is the best known of all geese, the one domesticated as a farmyard bird and the one that saved Ancient Rome from the Gauls in 390BC by doing what it does so well, spotting trouble and making a lot of noise. In much of Europe it is still an unsullied wild bird, inhabiting a much broader spectrum of habitats and climates than other geese, these including tundra, marshes and large lakes. In some places, including southern Britain, the population originates from farmland birds that have gone wild and reverted, over a few generations, to the plumage pattern of their ancestors, if not to their natural timidity.

The Greylag Goose has been intensively studied, mostly in captivity. These studies have formed the basis for our understanding of imprinting, the process by which young birds in the wild recognise their mother almost from hatching and will instinctively follow her wherever she goes. Captive goslings can be made to follow not just non-parent birds, but also other animals, including people, and even simple objects. In the wild it helps the brood remain together under the protection of both parents, rather than scattering about.

In common with other geese, Greylags form long-term relationships and all pairs, migratory or otherwise, remain together all year. The bond is maintained by a very complex vocabulary of calls and gestures. Of these, the most common and easily observed display is the “triumph ceremony”, in which the male launches an attack on a rival – real or imagined – and then returns to its mate to celebrate “victory”. With head down and neck ruffled to show off the “creases” that run down it, the male charges the foe. When he returns he holds his neck outstretched and the female follows suit; both call loudly, and although they might well face each other they will actually not meet front-on. That would be threatening; instead, the partners seem to peer past one another.

Another set of gestures ensures that, within flocks, birds have their own individual space where they can feed. In fact, since families remain together for many months after hatching, such a territory can be shared and all the members contribute to defending it. It’s not a fixed territory but moves as the birds move, ensuring that the immature birds, those that would normally be bottom of the “pecking order”, are well fed.

The Greylag is the largest of the “grey” geese, the most powerful but the least agile in the air, and the one requiring the longest run-up to get airborne. It feeds in the water more than other grey geese, often immersing its neck and upending its body to grasp submerged waterweeds and other plants. In winter flocks feed on agricultural land as well as on marshes and lakes.