The bar-headed goose breeds in the Tibetan Plateau of Central Asia, including Tibet, Mongolia, Kazakhstan, Nepal and Russia and crosses the Himalayas to winter in south Asia, from Pakistan in the west to Myanmar in the east, and from Assam in India, where I saw it at Kaziranga NP, in the north, to peninsular India in the south.
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| Bar-headed goose range, from Wikipedia. Green is the summer range, blue is the winter range and yellow is where it has been introduced. |
It is one of the highest flying birds. It has been heard flying over Makalu, the fifth highest mountain in the world, at 27,825 feet, has been observed flying at 23,000 feet, and has been tracked by GPS or satellite at over 21,460 feet. It flies these high altitudes at night in colder, denser air which makes it the equivalent of an elevation hundreds of yards lower.
It is distinguished from other gray geese by two black bars on its hindcrown. It is pale gray, has a white face, a dark hindneck and lower flanks, has a vertical white stripe on two sides of the neck, yellowish legs and a black-tipped yellow bill.
It may be my favorite goose.
Cool stripe on the neck. Tres chic (for a goose).
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