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Brant

Status Fairly common transient, rare in winter. Although it congregates in some numbers on long-established feeding grounds in the province, it is rarely seen in some parts, including Cape Breton Island and the Eastern Shore. Fall concentrations are regular along the shores of Northumberland Strait where the first flocks arrive in early September. They occur in smaller numbers irregularly at many other points along the coast. For reasons not understood, they largely bypass Cape Breton Island in spring and fall. On their main feeding grounds their numbers build up to a peak in early November but by late November most move on, although the time of departure varies somewhat from season to season.

Stragglers formerly occurred rarely in winter, two having been taken on the Grand Pre meadows on 31 December 1929 (W.E. Godfrey) and one in Halifax Harbour on 12 January 1925 (P.A. Taverner). In recent years, a few have wintered regularly on Brier Island, and flocks of spring migrants return to that island and to feeding grounds on Cape Sable in late winter (since 1960, average 6 March, earliest 28 January). Later they appear on Northumberland Strait; and "thousands" congregated off Wallace Harbour, Cumberland County, on 9 April 1927 (C.I. Macnab). Their spring migration is prolonged— it is usual to see flocks of 100-200 birds about the shores of Minas Basin as late as early June; these loiterers may be immature non-breeders.

Description Length: 64-79 cm. Adults: Head, neck and upper breast black; narrow patch of white on each side of neck; back and wings dark grayish brown; uppertail coverts white; tail black; lower breast and sides brownish gray, fading to white on belly and toward tail; bill, legs and feet black. Immatures: Similar but with little or no white on sides of neck.

Range Circumpolar. Breeds on the islands of the Arctic. Winters on the coast from Massachusetts to North Carolina and from British Columbia to Baja California.

Remarks This small goose is essentially a saltwater bird. The virtual disappearance of eelgrass (Zostera marina) from the Atlantic coast about 1931 affected it more adversely than it did the Canada Goose, whose feeding habits are more varied. Although Brants still return to their old feeding grounds, where the eelgrass has made a partial if not complete recovery, their numbers are significantly reduced in comparison to the great flocks that swarmed over the same feeding grounds prior to 1931.

Wickerson Lent has observed that when they first arrive at Brier Island on their way north they invariably congregate on Pond Cove, on the southwest side of the island, to eat mainly sea lettuce (Ulva linza) and Irish moss (Chondrus crispus), but later, when eelgrass is available, they spread along the shore. The subspecies visiting Nova Scotia is Branta bernicla hrota. An individual of the "Black Brant", Branta bernicla nigricans, which nests in the western Canadian Arctic and in Alaska and migrates along the west coast of North America, was identified among the Brant on Cape Sable on 12 March 1970 (B.J. and S. Smith).