Northern Pintail

How to identify

Field marks

1. Breeding male has a rufous-brown head, with a white stripe on side of neck extending toward rear of head
2. Male has two extremely long, upturned central tail feathers
3. Male wings gray, speculum greenish-bronze
4. Female dull brown, with a slender, elongated body

Male, female and young

Female dull brown, with many black patches on upperparts and black spots on breast, much less conspicuous than male.

Voice

Male gives a soft “proop-proop” whistle; female gives descending quacking calls like those of Mallard.

Similar species

Mallard

Northern Pintail is similar in size, but more slender and elongated, with a longer neck and, in male, a longer tail.

Where and when it's recorded

Busiest months: January and November · Most records: United States, Canada, United Kingdom

Northern Pintail has been recorded at 3,013 of the 8,276 birding hotspots we track, in 152 countries and regions.

Records by month Northern Hemisphere

Where it's recorded most

1. Reifel Bird SanctuaryCanada16,270 records
2. Billy Frank Jr. Nisqually NWRUnited States13,470 records
3. Riparian Preserve at Gilbert Water RanchUnited States12,147 records

Countries and regions with the most records

United StatesCanadaUnited KingdomIndiaChinaSpainJapanIsrael

eBird records via GBIF up to 2024-12-31. A record means someone listed it; more records partly mean more birders, not more birds.

About

The pintail or northern pintail (Anas acuta) is a duck species with wide geographic distribution that breeds in the northern areas of Europe and across the Palearctic and North America. It is migratory and winters south of its breeding range as far as the equator. Unusually for a bird with such a large range, it has no geographical subspecies, although the possibly conspecific duck Eaton's pintail is considered to be a separate species.

Excerpt from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0 · authors · Read more on Wikipedia

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