Suggested by Varttelilol

One of my favorite species of geese (along side the Hawaiian Goose), the Barnacle Goose.

Named after the Goose Barnacle because of their similar colour palette, these Geese are in the Genus Branta; The Black Geese.
Along side species such as the famous Canada Goose, Hawaiian Goose, Cackling Goose and others.
Genetic analysis has revealed that these geese are closely related to Cackling Geese and either derived from them or shared a common ancestor.

Barnacle Geese can be found in Greenland, Russia, the Neatherlands, Sweden, etc, and relatively recently; Finland. As well as a few other countries they may stop by on their migrations.

Barnacle Geese build their nests high up on mountains and cliffs, far out of the reach of any predator; but also far away from any feeding grounds.
Geese do not feed their goslings so the newly hatched birds need to come down.
So on their very first day of life, the goslings have to leap off of the incredibly high cliffs down to where their parents are calling.
Because they are so small, and their down (baby feathers) are so fluffy, they are able to softly glide down. When they hit the ground and start to tumble their down usually protects them from harm and they just walk away with their parents.
Of course some aren't so lucky and may not survive the fall down, whether that be from a fall injury or if a predator snatched them up last minute.

Before humans had a proper understanding of biology and the natural world, people thought up of some truly bizarre stuff to make sense of the world around them.
People didn't know that some bird species migrated and the Barnacle goose was one of those species.

Here is a paragraph describing how it was first though these geese were brought into the world:

Nature produces [Bernacae] against Nature in the most extraordinary way. They are like marsh geese but somewhat smaller. They are produced from fir timber tossed along the sea, and are at first like gum. Afterwards they hang down by their beaks as if they were a seaweed attached to the timber, and are surrounded by shells in order to grow more freely. Having thus in process of time been clothed with a strong coat of feathers, they either fall into the water or fly freely away into the air. They derived their food and growth from the sap of the wood or from the sea, by a secret and most wonderful process of alimentation. I have frequently seen, with my own eyes, more than a thousand of these small bodies of birds, hanging down on the sea-shore from one piece of timber, enclosed in their shells, and already formed. They do not breed and lay eggs like other birds, nor do they ever hatch any eggs, nor do they seem to build nests in any corner of the earth.

If it wasn't so obvious, they thought the timber from fir trees grew into the Goose Barnacles which then turned into the birds.
Bruh, what even



and some Goose Barnacles