Ashy-headed Goose

The ashy-headed goose is 50 to 60 cm (20 to 24 in) long. Males weigh 1.62 to 2.27 kg (3.6 to 5.0 lb) and females 1.47 to 1.49 kg (3.2 to 3.3 lb). Adults have the same plumage. Their heads and necks are gray, their upper back and breast chestnut with fine barring, their flanks barred black and white, and their belly white. In flight their blackish wings show bold white leading and trailing patches and a metallic green speculum. Their bill is black and the legs and feet orange with black markings. Juveniles' rufous areas are much duller, their back and breast barring stronger, and their speculum dark brownish.

The ashy-headed goose is a bird of South America's southern cone from central Chile and Buenos Aires Province, Argentina, south into Tierra del Fuego. It also occurs as vagrant on the Falkland Islands and has bred there. In summer it primarily inhabits clearings in damp forests of southern beech (Nothofagus sp.) around lakes and marshes, on inland islands, near the coast, and on higher ground. In winter it favors meadows and pastures.

The ashy-headed goose is almost entirely vegetarian. A study of its diet on its wintering grounds in Argentina showed it feeding mainly in harvested fields of wheat, maize, sunflower, and sorghum. One in the austral summer in Tierra del Fuego showed a diet there of leaves and fleshy fruits. Red crowberry (Empetrum rubrum) was the dominant fruit.