Brants

Brants 

(Branta) a genus of birds of the order Anseriformes. The head is small, the bill short and black, and the feet black. Brants resemble other geese in general build and way of life. There are five species, four of which inhabit the USSR. The black brant (B. bernicld) weighs approximately 2 kg; it nests in the tundra and forest tundra of Siberia, from Iamal to Chukotka, on many islands of the arctic region, and in North America from Alaska to Greenland.

The barnacle goose (B. leucopsis) nests on the southern island of Novaia Zemlia, on the Lofoten Islands, Spitsbergen, and in the eastern part of Greenland. The Canada goose (B. canadensis) weighs from 1.5 to 8 kg (various subspecies); it inhabits northern and northwestern America, and on rare occasions flies into Anadyr’. The red-breasted goose (B. rufficollis) is sometimes classified in the genus Rufibrenta. It is distributed from the lower reaches of the Ob’ River to the Khatanga. Its numbers are small and rapidly decreasing. The Hawaiian brant (B. sandvicensis) was common in the Hawaiian Islands; it has been almost exterminated (about 50 birds have been preserved). Brants, except for the Hawaiian and the red-breasted goose, are game birds.

The Russian word kazarka is also applied to two species of geese of the genus Anser: the white-fronted goose (A. albi-frons) and the lesser white-fronted goose (A. erythropus).

REFERENCE

Ptitsy Sovetskogo Soiuza, vol. 4. Edited by G. P. Dement’ev and N. A.Gladkov. Moscow, 1952.

E. V. KOZLOVA