Northern Pintail

Anas acuta


eBird gives this brief description of the Northern Pintail:  Elegant, slender duck with long neck and tail. Males have a chocolate brown head with a white slash coming up the neck, white breast, and mostly gray body. Females are patterned light brown. Forages in wetlands and in fields on agricultural waste grains.  The website All About Birds provides this additional descriptive information about the Northern Pintail: Elegant Northern Pintails swim through wetlands and lakes with their slender necks and long, pointed tails held high. Intricately patterned and pale-faced females join males fashioned with a signature white stripe down their chocolate-colored necks. These eager breeders head to the prairie pothole region of the Great Plains, as well as Canada, and Alaska to nest as soon as the ice breaks up. Large groups congregate in wetlands, lakes, bays, and even waddle through agricultural fields eating grains during the winter. Though still common, their populations are declining.

I saw my first Northern Pintail on the morning of Sunday, January 7, 2024, at Bolsa Chica Ecological Reserve near Huntington Beach, California.  I was in California to tour some Frank Lloyd Wright structures and to accompany Brent Paul on a couple of his safaris.  Bolsa Chica has a very nice boardwalk and walking trails, and it was from this boardwalk that I saw and photographed this beautiful bird.  


Cool Facts About the Northern Pintail From All About Birds:

  • When it comes to breeding, Northern Pintails don’t waste any time. They start nesting as soon as the ice starts to thaw, arriving by late April in places as far north as the Northwest Territories, Canada.
  • Northern Pintails migrate at night at speeds around 48 miles per hour. The longest nonstop flight recorded for a Northern Pintail was 1,800 miles.
  • Northern Pintails aren’t restricted to North America; they also occur in Europe, the Middle East, India, and Asia. In South America the White-cheeked Pintail and the Yellow-billed Pintail take their place.
  • The oldest recorded Northern Pintail was a male, and at least 22 years, 3 months old when he was shot in Saskatchewan, Canada in 1994.