Sergey Dereliev

The commonest goose specie, distributed from temperate to northern latitudes across the Palaearctic. In Europe, breeds in Iceland, western and central Europe, up to Scandinavia (nominate subspecies with orange bill), with subspecies rubrirostris (with pinkish bill) from Romania and Russia eastwards. Winters across most of western, central and eastern Europe, from Scotland to Spain, and east to Iran (and further east to China).

Season of assessment

W

Population trendIncreasing
Population size
(min-max, best estimate)		797000-975000,866000
Red List categoryLC
Franks, S., Fiedler, W., Arizaga, J., Jiguet, F., Nikolov, B., van der Jeugd, Ambrosini, R, Aizpurua, O., Bairlein, F., Clark, J., Fattorini, N, Hammond, M., Higgins, D, Levering, H., Skellorn, W., Spina, F, Thorup, K. Walker, J., Woodward, I. and Baillie, S.R. (1) (2022) Online Atlas of the movements of European bird populations. https://migrationatlas.org EURING/CMS (1) Principal investigator
Map

Overall Connectivity for Greylag Goose

The species is present across the breeding range at mid latitudes along the year, including Andalucía, but moves away from northernmost breeding locations, leaving Iceland and Scandinavia to winter at more southern latitudes across Europe, from Scotland, Denmark, to Spain and Greece. Most encounters obtained in Central (>100.000) and West (nearly 50.000) Europe, with a large increase of recoveries since the 2000s and the development of colour marking. The large Dutch breeding populations are mainly sedentary, with former southwards movements to Spain having become only occasional in the 2000s (Voslamber et al. 2010). Birds wintering along the Mediterranean coasts originate from Central Europe, not Nordic countries (Guillemain et al. 2019; Bacon et al. 2019). No age specific migration strategies, as expected from species undergoing fall familial migration. Feral populations do breed across the range and can locally complicate the definite understanding of the migration strategy of wild populations.

Recoveries by Condition for Greylag Goose

The very large part of the recoveries are live re-encounters (>90%) as field observations of colour neck and leg rings. As the species is a game bird in many countries, most pre-1960 recoveries are dead or shot records, with less than 10% of alive controls, with a classical switch to a vast majority (>90%) of live recoveries after 1990, thanks to a large effort in colour marking.

Annual Movements for Greylag Goose

Populations breeding in the British Isles do not leave this region in winter, and are then joint by Icelandic birds. Birds from North Europe (Scandinavia and Finland) move towards the southwest, to winter from Denmark to Spain, with two hotspots in the Netherlands and Andalucia, and staging areas along the flyway (Anderson et al. 2001).  Birds from Central Europe move southwards, e.g. from northern to southern Germany. Tracking data of geese from Neusiedler See revealed movements to the SW to Venetia and Sardinia in Italy, and to the North far up the Elbe river in Germany (Grabenhofer et al. 2022). There are numerous tracking programs on movebank which data should be analysed simultaneously to better appreciate the sedentarity/migratory behaviour of various populations, including feral ones.

Connectivity by Month by Region for Greylag Goose

Nordic birds start to move south as early as August, though main movements occur in October, with birds reaching southern Spain in November. In spring, first northwards movements by the beginning of February, peaking in March when late birds are still in Spain. Arrival on Nordic breeding grounds mainly in April (Nilsson 2017; Nilsson and Kampe-Persson 2018). The last birds of Central Europe have joined the breeding quarters by the end of April, and start to move southwards by mid-September. In Norway, climate change is advancing spring migration by almost a week per decade since the 1970s (Pistorius et al. 2006).

Frédéric Jiguet

References

Statistics Map
N records N individuals N recoveries
Mapped data*
Total available data
*Mapped data include only distant (>= 50 km) recoveries
References Map
Anderson Å, Follestad A, Nilsson L, Persson H2001 . Migration patterns of Nordic Greylag Geese Anser anser. Ornis Svecica 11: 19–58
Bacon, L. et al.2019 . Spatio–temporal distribution of greylag goose Anser anser resightings on the north-west/south-west European flyway: guidance for the delineation of transboundary management units. Wildlife Biology 2019: 1–10
Grabenhofer, H., et al.2022 . Unpublished Data. Movebank article no.: ID 505156776
Guillemain M, Bacon L, Kardynal KJ et a2019 . Geographic origin of migratory birds based on stable isotope analysis: the case of the greylag goose (Anser anser) wintering in Camargue, southern France. European Journal of Wildlife Research 65 article no.: 67 Link to Article (DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10344-019-1304-4)
Nilsson L, Kampe-Persson H2018 . Changes in migration and wintering patterns of greylag geese Anser anser from southernmost Sweden during three decades. Ornis Svecica 28: 19–38
Nilsson, L.2017 . Migration of greylag geese Anser anser according to recoveries of birds marked with traditional leg-rings in Sweden. Ornis Svecica 27: 132–138
Pistorius PA, Follestad A, Taylor FE2006 . Temporal changes in spring migration phenology in the Norwegian Greylag Goose Anser anser, 1971–2004. Wildfowl 56: 23–36
Voslamber B, Knecht E, Kleijn D2010 . Dutch Greylag Geese Anser anser: migrants or residents?. Ornis Svecica 20: 207–214

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