Theme-incoming black brant

[Bob Smith]

Nothing in my avian world more heart stopping than a flight of brant, wings cupped, side slipping into the beach across the wind. Boundary Bay, B.C. @ the pump house. These are the white belly variant. 5D MIII, EF 400 f/4 DO IS, ISO 1000, f/11, 1/1000, HH, crop 63% orig. pixels.

[Isaac Grant]

Cool shot with the birds coming right at you. I am left wishing the image was brighter and had more details in the birds. What is the white bellied variant? They look like typical Black Brant to me. If I saw that on the east coast my heart would skip a beat or two.

[Arthur Morris]

I agree that more light and detail on the birds would be a big plus. Great that f/11 got them all pretty sharp.

I think that the species is Brant on both coasts and that the eastern race has the white bellies. The birds in this image look like plain old black-bellied Brant as are typically seen on the west coast... That depending on what the scientists had for breakfast this week....

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[Isaac Grant]

Yes they surely look like nigricans (Black or Pacific) and not hrota (atlantic). Nice to see them. Funny they have different habits than our birds as well.

[Bob Smith]

Thanks for the comments guys. The brant population on the Pacific Coast is composed of two genetic variants that have not yet been given separate taxonomic designations, the grey bellied brant ( I referred to these as "white bellied" in the OP b/c that's what I've been calling them for 40 years.) and the black bellied. The greys breed in the Canadian High Arctic and the black bellies in the Yukon. Here in an angle of view that shows more detail the front two birds and the rear one are grey bellies and the middle four are black bellies..Pacific Black Brant
(Branta bernicla nigricans) Black Brant (Branta bernicla) is a small sea goose species that is circumpolar in its distribution. Black Brant breed in the North American and Eurasian Arctic.In North America there are two subspecies: the eastern Branta bernicla hrota, which winters along the Atlantic Coast from Massachusetts to North Carolina, and the western Pacific Black Brant (Branta bernicla nigricans), which primarily winters in Baja California, Mexico.Between 120,000-140,000 Pacific Black Brant (Branta bernicla nigricans) migrate along the Pacific Flyway each year.They follow a route that goes as far north as Prince Patrick and Mellville Islands in the Canadian North and as far south as Baja California in Mexico. Brant geese form long-term, monogamous pair-bonds and family units migrate together during the year.Ninety-five per cent of the diet is composed on eelgrass (Zostera marina and Zostera japonica) which grows in the brackish waters of intertidal mudflats.Unlike many other goose species, Brant along the Pacific coastline of British Columbia are strictly coastal. They do not come inland to graze in fields and are not a nuisance to agricultural practices.Within the Pacific Brant population there are two distinct genetic stocks: Grey-bellied Brant (Western High-Arctic Brant) and Black-bellied Brant.Not yet taxonomically differentiated, these two races are separated genetically and geographically.Grey-bellied Brant breed exclusively in the Canadian High Arctic and winter in Padilla Bay, Washington. Black-bellied Brant have a broader breeding range, the largest colonies of which are in the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta in southwestern Alaska.Ninety-one percent of the Black-bellied Brant winter in Mexico (that is 80% of the entire Pacific Brant population) with the remaining birds wintering as small populations along the Pacific Coast between Alaska and California (Sedinger et al 1994).Research by the CWE on Pacific Black Brant

http://www.sfu.ca/biology/wildberg/species/spbrant.html

The reference to wintering in Padilla Bay needs to be expanded to include Boundary Bay on the Canadian side of the border.

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