Specie's Page                                               Water Fowl - Greater White-fronted Geese

Greater White-fronted Goose:

UK Status: Non resident, but is a fairly regular winter visitor.

Habitat: These geese when in the UK inhabits river estuaries, various types of inland wetlands and pools. .

Breeding: This goose breed far north of the UK, their are two sub species, the Russian, or European, and the Greenland Greater White-fronts.

Sub Species: The Greenland Greater White-fronted, and Russian Greater White-fronted subspecies differ in appearance. The Russian sub species has a pink beak with a broad white border around the base of the beak. Birds from Greenland have a carrot orange coloured beak, again with the broad white border around the base of the beak. There are other minor differences, but the beak colour is more noticable.

Comment: Juveniles of the Greenland sub species tend to have a black tip on the beak, this black tip diminishes as the birds near maturity. Also the white border around the base of the beak is narrower and less well developed. They appear very similar to the Greylag Goose, and at a glance can be misidentified.