Life Cycle
Brants arrive at their breeding grounds, already paired, in early June. Brants nest in colonies in lowland areas of the tundra and prefer small islets in
ponds and small
lakes.
Female brants lay three to five eggs in a nest of moss, lichen, seaweed and down, in a depression in the ground. When the female leaves the nest to forage, she covers the eggs with down to keep them warm.
The eggs take a little under a month to hatch. The chicks leave the nest and are led to forage for food within a few days of hatching. The chicks fledge in 40-50 days, but they stay with their parents through the winter. Brants pairs usually remain together and return to the same breeding ground year-after-year.
Behavior
Brants are long distance
migrators. Some fly 3,000 miles from their nesting grounds on the coast of Arctic Ocean to the coast of Mexico. Other groups migrate from the Arctic down the Hudson Bay to the Atlantic Coast.
Brants don't migrate in V's like
Canada geese or straight lines like
snow geese. They fly in unorganized groups. They are very vocal when they migrate and make a loud "
cronk" sound.
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