Pintail Ecology
The Northern Pintail (Anas acuta) is a medium-sized duck with a slim profile, long, narrow neck and pointed tail. Males have a chocolate brown head, white fore neck, blue-gray bill with black stripe and a long "pin" tail. Wings are gray with an iridescent green speculum. Females are mottled brown and have bluish bills with dark spots or mottling.

Pintails dabble or "tip up" to feed on moist-soil and aquatic plant seeds, pondweeds and aquatic invertebrates. They also eat grains such as rice, wheat, corn and barley.

The birds nest from Alaska and the Canadian Arctic south to the Prairie Pothole region of southern Canada and the northern Great Plains of the United States. The species winters along the Pacific and Atlantic coasts from southeast Alaska and southeast Massachusetts to Mexico and Central America. The greatest North American numbers winter in California and along the Gulf of Mexico and breed in prairie Canada.

Northern Pintail pairs form in the fall and early winter but are maintained only to the early incubation of eggs. Females nest in open areas, usually on the ground in low or sparse vegetation and cropland stubble. Pintails tend to locate their nests farther from water than other ducks. Some birds renest after their initial nests have been destroyed, but few renest more than twice.

Pintails lay one egg each day with clutches averaging 7 to 9 eggs. Eggs range in color from gray-buff to pale olive-green. The eggs incubate for 22 to 24 days and then hatch within 24 hours of one another.

Ducklings usually leave the nest within 24 hours of hatching and feed without assistance and reach flight stage at 46 to 57 days old.