One of the most striking geese in the North Pacific. It’s a stocky, medium-sized goose, with a silvery-blue body patterned in fine black-and-white bars that give it a “scaled” look. Its head and the back of the neck are pure white, the bill is bubblegum pink, tipped with white, and the legs are bright yellow-orange, so it looks like someone carefully coloured it in with highlighters. In summer, the head often turns rusty or orange-brown—not a colour change in the feathers, but a stain picked up from feeding in iron-rich tidal pools.

This species is almost entirely Bering Sea–bound. Around 90% of the world population nests on the Yukon–Kuskokwim Delta of western Alaska, with smaller numbers breeding on coastal tundra around the Bering Sea and in a corner of northeast Russia. In summer, they use low, wet tundra with ponds, marshes and coastal lagoons, usually within a few miles of the sea. Nests are shallow bowls on the ground, often in tall dead grass on small rises or near water, lined with plant material and down plucked from the female.

Emperor geese are short-distance migrants by goose standards. After breeding, successful families stay near the delta to molt and raise the young, while non-breeders and failed breeders may move to places like St. Lawrence Island or the Chukchi Peninsula to molt. As autumn advances, they shift south along the coast to winter mainly in the Aleutian Islands, the Alaska Peninsula, Kodiak Island and nearby shores, with a few reaching British Columbia and only rare vagrants farther south. In winter, they favour rocky beaches, ice-free mudflats and brackish lagoons, usually right at the tide line. There they graze and grub on eelgrass, sea lettuce, and other marine plants, and pick animal food like mussels, clams and barnacles off rocks—one reason their meat historically had a stronger flavour than that of more vegetarian geese.

Distribution

Country

Population est.

Status

Year

Comments

Canada

2023

Non-Breeding

Russia

2023

Eastern Asian Russia

United States

2023