The Tundra Bean Goose (Anser serrirostris) is a medium-sized grey goose only recently recognised as a species in its own right, split from the closely related Taiga Bean Goose, and a regular but scarce winter visitor to southern Sweden. It measures roughly 75–85 cm in length, with a greyish-brown body, dark head and neck, orange legs, and a dark bill carrying a limited orange band. Compared with its taiga-breeding relative it tends to be somewhat smaller and darker, with a shorter, higher and more triangular bill in which the orange patch is reduced, and in flight the body looks shorter and more compact with a darker neck; the two forms overlap so much in appearance, and sometimes occur together in the same flock, that careful, experienced observation is needed for a confident identification.
Its call is a nasal, goose-like "ang-ang" or "kajak," on average slightly higher-pitched and faster than the deeper call of the Taiga Bean Goose. The species breeds on Arctic tundra in northern Russia, from around the Ural region eastward to eastern Siberia, and winters across Western and Central Europe; in Sweden it appears as a regular but scarce winter visitor and passage migrant, mainly in the southernmost provinces of Skåne and Halland, with most records between October and March, usually travelling among flocks of other geese. It does not breed in Sweden — on its Arctic breeding grounds it nests on open, wet ground near water, the female incubating a small clutch while the male stands guard nearby, and the precocial young grow quickly through the brief Arctic summer before the family migrates south together. The diet is entirely vegetarian, made up of grass, herbs and root matter on the breeding grounds and, in Swedish winter fields, waste grain and other cereal remains alongside grazing on ley and pasture.
Read about this species in Swedish →