Northern Pintail

The northern pintail is a large dabbling duck named for the male's long central tail feathers. The drake has a chocolate-brown head with a thin white stripe running from the back of the head down the neck into mostly white underparts, and grey, brown and black markings on the back and sides. The hen is drab brown like other female dabbling ducks. Both sexes have blue-grey bills and grey legs. Drakes give a flute-like whistle and hens a rough quack. Unusually for so widespread a bird, it has no geographical subspecies (Wikipedia, general species account).

It breeds across northern Europe, the Palearctic and North America and migrates south for the winter, as far as the equator. It uses open wetlands, nests on the ground often some distance from water, and dabbles for plant food, adding small invertebrates while nesting. Outside the breeding season it is highly gregarious and forms large mixed flocks with other ducks. In India it is a winter migrant. SoIB 2023 estimates a long-term decline of about 75% and a current fall of about 7% a year, and rates it a High conservation priority (Wikipedia, general species account; SoIB 2023).