The chicks hatch in late June and early July, and during that time, are liable to hatch and flee the nest just about any time between 6 a.m. It took director Mateo Willis three weeks to capture this scene, which is featured in the new National Geographic Channel show Hostile Planet. īarnacle geese live in three different main populations, which breed in eastern Greenland (where the above video was filmed), Svalbard, and Novaya Zemlya. Goose parents attempt to drive off gulls and foxes, but this is usually unsuccessful, he says. Foxes will “eagerly snap up as many chicks as possible to stash them for later,” Cabot adds. The real hazards are the predators-mainly Arctic foxes, but also glaucous gulls-that await the goslings on their route from the cliff bottom to the water’s edge. “Only a few die from being caught in rock cracks, gullies, or smacking into a sharp rock.” “They are light and fluffy, often appearing to bounce off rocks as they fall,” says Cabot, who was the first to film this incredible phenomenon, in 1985. While it looks terrifying, the chicks are so lightweight that they do not usually die upon hitting the ground, says David Cabot, an adjunct professor at Ireland’s University of Cork. Usually between three and five eggs are laid each year. To get to the grass-and the water, where they are more protected from predators-the birds must plummet from their high-altitude nests following their parents. But this strategy has a drawback: To start their lives, young geese must survive a harrowing fall-sometimes hundreds of feet.Īs soon as 24 hours after hatching, goslings need to leave the nest to feed on grass, which their parents do not and cannot feed them. Life is harsh for barnacle geese, which must contend with Arctic temperatures and protect their young from predators like foxes by nesting on high ledges and cliffs.
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