Bar-headed Goose



The Bar-headed Goose breeds in Central Asia in colonies of thousands near mountain lakes and during winters they usually breed in South Asia, as far south as peninsular India. It lays three to eight eggs at a time in a ground nest. It is known for the extreme altitudes it reaches when migrating across the Himalayas.

 The bird is pale grey and is easily distinguished from any of the other grey geese because of the black bars on its head. It is also much paler than the other geese in its family. In-flight, its call is a typical goose honking.

 The Bar-headed Goose has an extremely large range and can be found in Afghanistan, Bangladesh Bhutan, China, India, Mongolia, Myanmar, Nepal, Russia, Thailand, and Vietnam. They have also been introduced to Canada and Spain.

These birds prefer high altitude mountain lakes. Their powerful and constant flight helps generate body heat, which is retained by their down feathers. Such heat helps keep ice from building up on their wings when flying over mountains. These geese also have a special type of hemoglobin that absorbs oxygen quicker than other birds, they can also extract more oxygen from each breath than other birds can. These geese are able to migrate more than 1609 km in a single day.

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