Friends of Salter Grove logo
Menu

Graylag Goose (domestic type)

Anser anser
Anatidae
Domesticated Graylag with grayish beige plumage
Graylags seen at Salter Grove had white at base of bill
Wild type top, domestic below; corrugated neck on both
Wild type Gaylags with streamlined bill and body
Domesticated Graylag has very bulky body
Wild Graylag in flight has darker wings than ...
... domestic Graylags
Wild birds pair for life
Wild pair with recently hatched goslings
Wild family or not; yellow bills cast doubt
Domesticated Graylags can produce a variety of plumages
From a gradation of gray and white ...
... to pure white but the corrugated neck still present
Looking like a swan with spectacles
Hybrid offspring with Canada Goose
Feral population in New Zealand reverts to wild type plumage
Domesticated goose featured in 700 BC Egyptian stele

Two Gaylag Geese were seen off Marsh Island in mid-October 2021.  On the basis of their rather bulky grayish-beige body, the orange beak bordered by white at the base, and pinkish orange legs, they were probably feral or escaped individuals of the domesticated form.  Wild individuals from Europe would be slimmer and have darker grayish-brown plumage and a darker head.  There has been only one verified record in Rhode Island of a vagrant Graylag which was observed from 20 December 2016 to 25 January 2017 in and around East Providence.

This palearctic goose occurs across Europe and Asia extending as far south as the Mediterranean region, North Africa, and northern India.  Since the 1950's northern populations have been wintering closer to their breeding grounds because of rising winter temperatures.  In recent decades it has become an agricultural pest in northern Europe because large wintering flocks not only feed on waste grain in harvested fields but also consume growing crops of grain and tubers

Wild Gaylags interbreed readily with domesticated individuals as well as with other species such as Canada Goose and the Mute Swan to produce a variety of hybrid plumages.  The substantial feral populations established in both Australia and New Zealand originated from escaped farm animals and resemble their wild ancestors.

The Graylag goose was domesticated at least 3,000 years ago.  In ancient times, it was linked to various deities and revered across Eurasia, notably in Egypt, Greece and Rome.  The Icelandic Gray Goose Laws of the 16th century may have been so named either because they were written with a goose quill or bound in goose skin.  More recently Mother Goose was a character in French fairy tales and English nursery rhymes.  And let's not forget the roast goose of  European winter holiday feasts.

Goose wing feathers made excellent writing quills.  Primaries from the left wing were especially well suited to right-handed writers because they naturally curved away from the line of view--the converse would presumably be true for primaries from the right wing.  Primary feathers from geese and other large birds were used for writing and drawing from the 6th until the mid-19th century when steel pen points were first produced.