Black Brant
(Branta bernicla nigricans)

Black Brant breed in the North American and Siberia. In North America there are two subspecies: the eastern Pale-bellied Brent Goose (Branta bernicla hrota), which winters along the Atlantic Coast from Massachusetts to North Carolina, and the Pacific Black Brant (Branta bernicla nigricans), which primarily winters in Baja California, Mexico.

Brant are small, stocky geese with black heads and necks. They have a white ring around the neck and are distinctly white underneath the tail. A saltwater plant called eelgrass, which grows in shallow estuaries, is their primary source of food and freshwater.

This small goose needs large areas of undisturbed tundra to nest. There are about 1,000 pairs that nest on the Arctic Coastal Plain, another 33,000 Pacific Brants spend the summer there.

Spring migration:
The lifecycle of the brant begins in the high Arctic tundra of Russia and Canada. The adults build nests in small indentations in marshy coastal areas and in late June to early July, young brant hatch out and begin feeding on insects to gain strength for their first migration. Sometime in mid August the young brant take their first flight, and by September have joined with thousands of their kind at Izembek Lagoon on the Alaska Peninsula. The 84,000-acre lagoon is 30 miles long and contains the largest eelgrass beds on the North American Pacific coast. From late September to the end of October more than 150,000 brant can be found at Izembek Lagoon, fattening up on eelgrass in preparation for their non-stop migration south. Around the first of November, they leave all together on a 3,000-mile journey over the Pacific Ocean to wintering grounds in the estuaries and lagoons of southern British Columbia, the United States and Mexico. This migration takes between 60-95 hours and the brant lose nearly one-third of their body weight.

Black Brant off of Canvey Point 28/03/04

The following photographs of the Black Brant were all taken by Steve Arlow of the Southend Ornithological Group 24th November 2002 at Paglesham.