667 Featured Specimen

Northern pintail

Anas acuta

A slim dabbling duck with the male's long central tail feathers giving it a sharply pointed profile.

Range

Habitat range map

Native range Occasional / Transient

Map: Ecoregions 2017 © RESOLVE (CC BY 4.0) · Natural Earth (PD)

Uses lakes, marshes, shallow ponds, estuaries, and coastal lagoons, breeding near open wetlands and tundra pools.

Males have a chocolate-brown head, white neck stripe, gray body, and long pointed tail. Females are mottled brown.

Outside the breeding season it forms mixed flocks with other ducks and feeds by tipping up in shallow water.

Aquatic plants, seeds, grain, insects, crustaceans, and mollusks are eaten, with more animal food during breeding.

Ground nests are placed in grass, often away from water. Females incubate, and ducklings walk to water soon after hatching.

Its large range masks local sensitivity to wetland water levels, hunting pressure, and drying breeding habitat.