Tag: birds

It is very safe to assume that on 26 March 2025 the pictured grassy “runway” experienced more landings, take-offs and taxiings than did Flinders Island’s airport.

At the airport each such action was a “one at a time” affair; in the paddock, invariably, each such event simultaneously involved a pair of partners-for-life.

The featured photo and the one below were taken within a few seconds of each other, and they show the same couple.

Cape Barren geese are monogamous, and a “breeding pair” usually forms a life-long bond.

During the breeding season the pair focus almost exclusively on each other, their nest and their eggs/chicks.

After breeding season (generally, in tussocky wild places on offshore islands) Cape Barren geese usually fly to grassy places.

These are often on south-coastal, mainland-Australian farmland, or paddocks on the larger offshore islands.

In “grazing mode”, the geese are more generally-sociable.

However, as you can see in the immediately-preceding chapter’s photo, even within grazing “flocks” the pair-bonds are conspicuously evident.

The world’s rarest goose lives only in Hawai’i; click here to discover more about the Nene, aka “The Hawaiian Goose”.

The second rarest goose species – pictured above – lives only in certain southern Australian coastal places.

Like the Nene, the Cape Barren Goose (Cereopsis novaehollandiae) very nearly became extinct; by 1950, both species appeared to be “doomed”.

However, conservation efforts in the 20th century’s second half proved successful.

Neither species is now on the IUCN’s list of “threatened” species.

Certain key physical and behavioural features of Cape Barren geese are evident in the photo.