Their heads and necks are red-brown, their back, breast, and flanks gray and buff with brown barring, their belly cinnamon, and their tail black.

[4] The ruddy-headed goose is found in the eastern Chilean and Argentinian parts of Tierra del Fuego and north from there to Buenos Aires Province, Argentina.

[4] The ruddy-headed goose's breeding season begins as early as September on the Falkland Islands and in mid-October on the mainland.

The population in the Falklands appears robust but that in Tierra del Fuego and mainland South America may be only a few hundred birds after major decline in the 20th century.

[1][5] A major cause of the crash is predation by the South American gray fox, which was introduced to Tierra del Fuego in the 1950s to control rabbits.

[6] A Memorandum of Understanding was negotiated in 2006 with Argentina and Chile under the Bonn Convention in an attempt to safeguard the remaining migratory Tierra del Fuego/mainland population.