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Northern
Pintail
Anas acuta [American Pintail]
[Published
in 1923: Smithsonian Institution United States National Museum
Bulletin 126 (Part 1): 144-156]
Spring.--Northward, ever northward,
clearly indicated on the distant sky, points the long slim figure
of the pintail, in the vanguard of the spring migration, wending
its way toward remote and still frozen shores. Vying with the
mallard to be the first of the surface feeding ducks to push
northward on the heels of retreating winter, this hardy pioneer
extends its migration to the Arctic coast of the continent and
occupies the widest breeding range of any North American duck,
throughout most of which it is universally abundant and well
known.
Prof. George E. Beyer (1906) says that, in Louisiana,
"winter visitant individuals, as with similar individuals of
the mallard, move northward very early, probably never later than
the middle of January," whereas the spring transients in that
State "are the latest of all the ducks except the teals and
the shoveller." This accounts for the two distinct flights of
pintails with which gunners are familiar. Dr. F. Henry Yorke
(1899) recognizes three distinct flights; he says:
The spring migration above the frost line commences with the
first breaking up of winter; the ducks follow the open pools of
water to be found in sloughs, lakes, and rivers, and with the
yellow-leg mallard are the first of the non-divers to start for
their northern nesting grounds. They arrive in three distinct
issues, the first leaving, in bulk, at least, before the second
arrives; these stay about a week before they proceed northward. An
absence of pintails, for three or four days, generally follows
before the third issue puts in an appearance, which stay a week or
10 days, according to the weather, then travel northward, breeding
chiefly south of the Canadian line.
Mr. Edmonde S. Currier (1902) says of its late arrival in Iowa:
If the great break-up of the ice comes late in the season,
as the first week in March, which often happens after a severe
winter, we find the eager sprigtails, and the first flight of
mallards coming up, and then there is a bird life worth seeing.
Although the number of ducks that pass here is rapidly falling
off, still thousands are left.
The first flight of pintails is, with us, the greatest, and
they always appear while the ice is running. Several days before
the ice gives way an occasional flock will come up and circle
around over the frozen river as if taking observations, and then
disappear to the south. If a rain comes before the ice goes out,
and forms pools in the bottom-land corn fields, they will settle
in these until the rivers open, or a cold wave strikes us.
The pintail reaches its breeding grounds in northern Alaska
early in May and sometimes before the end of April, while winter
conditions are still prevailing. Dr. E. W. Nelson (1887) says:
One spring a small party was found about a small spring hole
in the ice on the seashore the first of May, while a foot of snow
still covered the ground and the temperature ranged only a few
degrees above zero. As snow and ice disappear they become more and
more numerous, until they are found about the border of almost
every pool on the broad flats from the mouth of the Kuskoquim
River north to the coast of Kotzebue Sound.
Courtship.--The courtship
display of the shy pintail is not often seen, for even on their
remote northern breeding grounds the males are ever alert and are
not easily approached. The performance resembles that of the
teals, where several drakes may be seen crowding their attention
on a single duck, each standing erect on the water proudly
displaying his snowy breast, with his long neck doubled in
graceful curves until his bill is rested upon his swelling chest
and with his long tail pointed upwards; thus he displays his
charms and in soft mewing notes he woos his apparently indifferent
lady love until she expresses her approval with an occasional low
quack.
A more striking form of courtship, and one more often seen, is
the marvelous nuptial flight, which Doctor Nelson (1887) has so
well described as follows:
Once, on May 17, while sitting overlooking a series of small
ponds, a pair of pintails arose and started off, the male in full
chase after the female. Back and forth they passed at a
marvelously swift rate of speed, with frequent quick turns and
evolutions. At one moment they were almost out of view high
overhead and the next saw them skimming along the ground in an
involved course very difficult to follow with the eye. Ere long a
second male joined in the chase, then a third, and so on until six
males vied with each other in the pursuit. The original pursuer
appeared to be the only one capable of keeping close to the coy
female, and owing to her dexterous turns and curves he was able to
draw near only at intervals. Whenever he did succeed he always
passed under the female, and kept so close to her that their wings
clattered together with a noise like a watchman's rattle, and
audible a long distance. This chase lasted half an hour, and after
five of the pursuers had dropped off one by one, the pair
remaining (and I think the male was the same that originated the
pursuit) settled in one of the ponds.
Nesting.--Mr. F. Seymour Hersey
says in his notes on this species in northern Alaska:
There is probably no place within the breeding range of this
widely distributed duck where it is more abundant than on the
stretch of tundra bordering the Bering Sea coast of western
Alaska. Almost every little tundra pond will contain a few
birds--perhaps a pair or a female and two or three males--and
parties of two to five or six are constantly flying from one pond
to another.
The pintail very often makes its nest farther from water
than any other of the northern breeding ducks, although the
greater number nest near the shores of ponds. Before the set is
complete, the eggs are covered with down, intermingled with
leaves, sticks, dead grass, and mosses, and the female spends the
day at a considerable distance from the nest. Incubation begins
only when the set is complete. Early in June, 1914, while walking
over the tundra some miles back from St. Michael I noticed a few
pieces of down clinging to the base of some dwarf willow bushes.
It aroused my suspicions and searching among the accumulated dead
leaves and moss at the roots of the bush I soon disclosed an
incomplete set of pintail's eggs. They were thoroughly concealed
and had it not been for the few telltale bits of down would have
remained undiscovered. The female later completed this set, and on
June 10 the nest held nine eggs. This nest was at least a half
mile from the nearest water. At the mouth of the Yukon on
June 17, 1914, two nests were found in the center of some clumps
of willows in a marsh. The bushes were growing in a few inches of
water through which a heavy growth of coarse grass protruded.
About the base of the willows the dead grass of previous years was
matted and in this dead grass the nests were made. This was the
wettest situation that I ever knew this species to select in the
north.
As might be expected of an early migrant, the pintail is one of
the earliest breeders; in North Dakota it begins to lay by the 1st
of May or earlier and we found that many of the broods were
hatched by the first week in June. The nest is placed almost
anywhere on dry ground, sometimes near the edge of a slough or
pond, sometimes on an island in a lake, but more often on the
prairie and sometimes a half a mile or more from the nearest
water; it is generally poorly concealed and is often in plain
sight. Once, while crossing a tract of burned prairie, I saw a
dark object fully half a mile away, which on closer inspection
proved to be a pintail sitting on a nest full of half roasted
eggs; this was a beautiful illustration of parental devotion and
showed that the bird was not dependent on concealment. A deep
hollow is scooped out in the ground, which is sparingly lined with
bits of straw and stubble, and a scanty lining of down is
increased in quantity as incubation advances.
My North Dakota notes describe four nests of this species. The
first nest, found on May 31, 1901, was concealed in rather tall
prairie grass on the highest part of a small island in one of the
larger lakes. On June 15 we found another nest in an open
situation among rather sparse but tall prairie grass, which was in
plain sight, the eggs being beautifully concealed by a thick
covering of down. Another nest was shown to us by some farmers who
were plowing up an extensive tract of prairie and had flushed the
bird as they passed within a few feet of the nest; they left a
narrow strip containing the nest unplowed, but something destroyed
the eggs a few days afterwards; this nest was fully half a mile
from the nearest water. The fourth nest was on the edge of a
cultivated wheat field, near the crest of a steep embankment
sloping down into a large slough; the nest was a deep hollow in
the bottom of a furrow, 7 inches wide by 4 deep lined with bits of
straw and weed stubble, with a moderate supply of down surrounding
the eggs; it was very poorly concealed by the scanty growth of
weeds around it; the eight eggs, which it contained on June 10,
proved to be heavily incubated.
In Saskatchewan, in 1905 and 1906, we recorded 11 nests of
pintails, 8 of which were found on one small island on one day,
where this species was breeding with large numbers of gadwalls,
blue-winged and green-winged teals, shovellers, mallards,
baldpates, and lesser scaup ducks. One pintail's nest was prettily
located under a wild rosebush among the sand hills near Crane
Lake, 1 mile from the nearest creek and 2 miles from the lake.
Mr. Robert B. Rockwell (1911) found two nests of this species,
in the Barr Lake region of Colorado, in decidedly exposed
situations, which he describes as follows:
The first nest, found on May 11, 1907, was probably the most
unusually located nest of the pintail on record. It was just a
trifle less than 18 feet from the rails of the main line of the
Burlington route, over which a dozen or more heavy trains
thundered every day, and well within the railroad right of way,
where section hands and pedestrians passed back and forth
continually. The mother bird had found a cavity in the ground,
about 8 inches in diameter and 8 inches deep, and had lined it
with grass; and the two fresh eggs which it contained on this date
were deposited without any downy lining whatever. The female
flushed as we passed along the track about 20 feet distant, thus
attracting our attention. A week later (on the 18th) the nest was
fairly well lined with down and contained nine eggs, one egg
having apparently been deposited each day. On May 24 the nest
contained 11 eggs and the parent was much tamer than on the two
preceding visits, allowing us to approach to within 15 feet of
her, and alighting within 20 yards of us upon being flushed.
Another peculiar nest was found on May 30, 1908, containing
11 eggs which hatched during the first week in June. This nest was
a depression in a perfectly bare sandy flat without a particle of
concealment of any kind. The cavity was located in the most
exposed position within hundreds of yards, and was fairly well
lined with weed stems, grass, etc. and well rimmed with down. The
brooding female was very conspicuous against the background of
bare sand, and could be readily seen from a distance of 50 feet or
more. This bird was rather wild and flushed while we were yet some
distance from the nest.
Mr. Eugene S. Rolfe (1898) records, what I have never seen, a
pintail's nest in a wet situation, which is very unusual; he says:
The nesting of the pintail differs little generally from
other ducks that select high dry spots among the prairie grass,
badger brush, or old stubble; but a young farmer this year piloted
me to a clump of thick green bulrushes covering a space as large
as a dining table in the midst of a springy bog, and in the center
of this, built up 6 inches out of water (18 inches deep) on a
foundation of coarse dried rushes, exactly after the manner of the
redhead, canvasback, or ruddy, and lined with down, was a
veritable nest of the pintail. The female was at home, and
permitted approach within 6 feet; and I stood some moments
watching her curiously and regretting the absence of my camera
before I realized that this was the pintail in a very unusual
situation.
The down in the pintail's nest most closely resembles that of
the shoveller, but it is larger and darker. It varies in color
from "hair brown" to "fuscous" or "clove
brown" with whitish centers. The breast feathers mixed with
the down are either of the characteristic banded pattern or are
grayish brown with a broad white tip.
Eggs.--Only one brood is raised in a
season and the number of eggs in the set averages less than other
surface feeding ducks. The set varies from 6 to 12 eggs, but it is
usually less than 10. It is unusual to find the eggs of other
ducks in a pintail's nest, but as the eggs closely resemble those
of some other species, it may be a commoner occurrence than it is
supposed to be. Mr. Edward Arnold (1894) records the finding of a
golden eye's egg in a pintail's nest in Manitoba. The eggs closely
resemble, in color and general appearance, those of the mallard
and the shoveller, but they average smaller than the former and
slightly larger than the latter, the measurements overlapping in
both cases. In shape they are usually elliptical ovate and the
color varies from very pale olive green to very pale olive buff,
which fades out to a mere tint.
Although the eggs of the pintail cannot be separated with
certainty from those of the above two species, the nests of all
three can usually be identified if a clear view of the female is
obtained as she flies from the nest; the female pintail can be
distinguished from the female mallard by the absence of the purple
speculum with its conspicuous white borders and by its long
slender form; she can be distinguished from the shoveller by her
larger size and her small bill; the female shoveller has a long
neck, but a conspicuously large bill; the wing pattern is
different, but the difference is difficult to detect in the
rapidly moving wings of a flying duck.
The measurements of 102 eggs, in various collections, average
54.9 by 38.2 millimeters; the eggs showing the four extremes
measure 60 by 38.5, 58.5 by 40.5, 50.5 by
37.2 an 53 by 35 millimeters.
Young.--The period of incubation
is about 22 or 23 days and the incubation is performed wholly by
the female; she is a very close sitter and is often nearly trodden
upon before she will leave the nest; I have heard of one being
knocked off with a stick or a plowman's whip as she fluttered off,
and it is not a difficult matter to photograph one on her nest.
The male does not, I believe, wholly desert the female during the
process of incubation and he assists somewhat in the care of the
young, though he is not as bold in their defense. The young remain
in the nest for a day or so after they are hatched or until the
down is thoroughly dried. The whole brood usually hatches within a
few hours, for, although only one egg is laid each day, incubation
does not begin until the set is complete. As soon as the young are
strong enough to walk they are led by their mother to the nearest
water, which is often a long distance away, and taught to feed on
soft insect and aquatic animal food. I have seen some remarkable
demonstrations of parental solicitude by female pintails; they are
certainly the most courageous of any of the ducks in the defense
of their young. Once in North Dakota as we waded out into a marsh
a female pintail flew towards us, dropped into the water near us,
and began splashing about in a state of great excitement. The
young ducks were probably well hidden among the reeds,
though we could not see or hear them. During all the time, for an
hour or more, that we were wading around the little slough that
pintail watched us and followed us closely, flying about our heads
and back and forth over the slough, frequently splashing down into
the water near us in the most reckless manner, swimming about in
small circles or splashing along the surface of the water, as if
wounded and often near enough for us to have hit her with a stick,
quacking excitedly all the time. I never saw a finer exhibition of
parental devotion than was shown by her total disregard of her own
safety, which did not cease until we left the locality entirely. I
have had several similar experiences elsewhere. If alarmed, when
swimming in the sloughs, the young seldom attempt to dive though
they can do so, if necessary; they more often swim into the reeds
and hide while the mother bird attracts the attention of the
intruder. Doctor Coues (1874) says that during July in Montana--
The young were just beginning to fly, in most instances,
while the old birds were for the most part deprived of flight by
molting of the quills. Many of the former were killed with sticks,
or captured by hand, and afforded welcome variation of our hard
fare. On invasion of the grassy or reedy pools where the ducks
were, they generally crawled shyly out upon the prairie around,
and then squatted to hide; so that we procured more from the dry
grass surrounding than in the pools themselves. I have sometimes
stumbled thus upon several together, crouching as close as
possible, and caught them all in my hands.
Dr. Harold C. Bryant (1914) relates the following incident:
On May 21 a pintail with 10 downy young was discovered on
the bank of a pond. When first disturbed she was brooding her
young on dry ground about 10 feet from the water. The moment she
flew the downy young assumed rigidly the same poses they had
variously held beneath the mother. Some were standing nearly erect
whereas others were crouching, but all were huddled close
together. They remained perfectly motionless while, leaving
Kendall to watch, I went for the camera. I had gone over a hundred
yards before they moved. By the time I returned they had wandered
off about 10 yards. They marched in single file and every now and
then huddled close together posing motionless for a few moments.
Plumages.--The downy young is
grayer and browner than other young surface-feeding ducks and thus
easily recognized. The crown is dark, rich "clove
brown"; and a broad superciliary stripe of grayish white
extends from the lores to the occiput; below this the side of the
head is mainly grayish white, fading to pure white on the throat
and chin, with a narrow postocular stripe of "clove
brown" and a paler and broader stripe of the same below it.
The back is "clove brown," darkest on the rump, with
grayish or buffy tips on the down of the upper back; the rump and
scapular spots are white, the latter sometimes elongated into
stripes. The lower parts are grayish white, palest in the center.
The chest, and sometimes the sides of the head, are suffused with
pinkish buff, but never with yellow. The colors become duller and
paler as the bird grows older. When the young bird is about 3
weeks old the first feathers appear on the flanks and scapulars
and the tail becomes noticeable; about a week later feathers begin
to show on the rump, breast, head, and neck, and the bird is fully
grown before its contour plumage is complete; the flight feathers
are the last to be acquired. The length of time required to
complete the first plumage varies greatly in different
individuals, but the sequence in which it appears is uniform.
Mr. J. G. Millais (1902) says of the sequence of plumages to
maturity:
When in first plumage the young male and female are
exceedingly like one another, especially at the commencement of
this period; they also resemble the mother to a certain extent,
but from her they can be easily distinguished by the small spots
which cover the breast and belly, and the narrow brown edge of the
feathers on the back and scapulars. The young male pintail,
however, like the young mallard drake, almost as soon as he has
assumed his first dress commences to color change in the back and
scapulars. A gray tinge suffuses the brown plumage and slight
reticulations appear on the feathers themselves, rendering it easy
to notice the difference between him and the young female. He is
also somewhat larger. By the middle of September the usual molt
and the more advanced feather changes commence, and sometimes, in
birds in a high state of condition, advance so rapidly, that young
drakes of the year may attain the full plumage of the adult drake
by the beginning of December. Most of them, however, retain a
considerable proportion of the brown plumage until February, when
the spring flush finishes off the dress. Even then young pintail
drakes are not nearly so brilliant as 2 or 3 year old birds, and
often show their youthfulness by their shorter tail, dull coloring
on the head, and reticulated black bars traversing the white
stripes on either side of the neck.
There is considerable individual variation in the length of
time required by young birds to throw off the last signs of
immaturity, but old and young birds become practically
indistinguishable before the first eclipse plumage is assumed and
entirely so after it is discarded. Some male pintails begin to
show the first spotted feathers of the eclipse plumage early in
June and during July the molt progresses rapidly and uniformly
over the whole body, head, and neck until the full eclipse is
complete in August, and the males are indistinguishable from the
females except by the wings and the difference in size. The wings
are molted only once, of course, in August; and, after the flight
feathers are fully grown, early in September, the second molt into
the adult winter begins; this molt is usually not completed until
November or December, the time varying with different individuals.
I have never detected any signs of a spring molt in male pintails,
but Mr. Millais calls attention to the fact that females which
have pure white breasts in the winter become more or less spotted
during the nesting season.
Food.--The pintail is a surface
feeder, dipping below the surface only with the fore part of its
body, with its tail in the air, maintaining its balance by
paddling with its feet, while its long neck is reaching for its
food. Here it feeds on the bulbous roots and tender shoots of a
great variety of water plants, as well as their seeds; it also
finds some animal food such as minnows, crawfish, tadpoles,
leeches, worms, snails, insects, and larvae. Dr. F. Henry Yorke
(1899) states that it feeds on wheat, barley, buckwheat, and
Indian corn. Audubon (1840) says of its animal food:
It feeds on tadpoles in spring and leeches in autumn, while,
during winter, a dead mouse, should it come its way, is swallowed
with as much avidity as by a mallard. To these articles of food it
adds insects of all kinds, and, in fact, it is by no means an
inexpert flycatcher.
Dr. P. L. Hatch (1892) says that, in Minnesota, the pintails
may be found in spring "along the recently opened streams,
and in the woodlands where they spend much of their time in search
of acorns, insects, snails, and larvae of different kinds, which
are under the wet leaves and on the old decaying logs with which
the forests abound." Mr. Edward A. Preble (1908) found it
feeding on small mollusks (Lymnaea palustris) in northern
Canada, and Mr. F. C. Baker (1889) dissected 15 stomachs in
Florida, all of which contained "shells of Truncatella
subcylindrica (Say)." Mr. Douglas C. Mabbott (1920) sums
up the food of the pintail as follows:
Vegetable matter constitutes about seven-eighths (87.15 per
cent) of the total food of the pintail. This is made up of the
following items: Pondweeds, 28.04 per cent; sedges, 21.78;
grasses, 9.64; smartweeds and docks, 4.74; arrow grass, 4.52; musk
grass and other algae, 3.44; arrowhead and water plantain, 2.84;
goosefoot family, 2.58; water lily family, 2.57; duckweeds, 0.8;
water milfoils, 0.21; and miscellaneous vegetable food, 5.99 per
cent.
The animal portion, 12.85 per cent, of the food of the
pintail was made up of mollusks, 5.81 per cent; crustaceans, 3.79
per cent; insects, 2.85 per cent; and miscellaneous, 0.4 per cent.
Behavior.--The pintail is built
on graceful, clipper lines and is well fitted to cleave the air at
a high rate of speed; it has been credited by gunners with ability
to make 90 miles an hour; this may be rather a high estimate of
its speed, but it is certainly very fleet of wing and surpassed by
few if any of the ducks. Mr. Walter H. Rich (1907) says:
The pintail's flight will at once remind the bay gunner of
that of the "old squaw," so well known along the
Atlantic coast. The same chain lightning speed and darting and
wheeling evolutions are common in both species.
Dr. E. W. Nelson (1887) who had good opportunities for studying
this species in Alaska, gives the following graphic account of one
of its remarkable flight performances:
During the mating season they have a habit of descending
from a great altitude at an angle of about 45 o,
with their wings stiffly outspread and slightly decurved downward.
They are frequently so high that I have heard the noise produced
by their passage through the air from 15 to 20 seconds before the
bird came in sight. They descend with meteorlike swiftness until
within a few yards of the ground, when a slight change in the
position of the wings sends the birds sliding away close to the
ground from 100 to 300 yards without a single wing stroke. The
sound produced by this swift passage through the air can only be
compared to the rushing of a gale through tree tops. At first it
is like a murmur, then rising to a hiss, and then almost assuming
the proportions of a roar as the bird sweeps by.
The pintail can generally be distinguished in flight by its
long, slim neck and slender build, which is conspicuous in both
sexes; the tail is also more pointed than in other species, even
without the long tail feathers of the full plumaged male. The
pintail springs upward from the water, much like a teal, and gets
under way at once; a flock of pintails flushed suddenly will often
bunch together so closely as to give the gunner a chance for a
destructive shot.
The pintail is a graceful swimmer, riding lightly on the
surface, with its tail pointing upward, its general attitude
suggestive of a swan and with its long neck stretched up, alert to
every danger, the first to give the alarm and always the first of
the shy waterfowl to spring into flight. The hunter must be very
cautious if he would stalk this wary bird. Though not a diver from
choice, the pintail can dive when necessity requires it. It often
escapes by diving while in the flightless stage of eclipse
plumage.
Mr. Hersey's notes on this species in Alaska record the
following interesting observation:
While the pintail is not a diving duck, it can dive readily
if wounded and in other emergencies. On one occasion a female
followed by two males flew past and I shot the female. She dropped
into a nearby pond but when I reached the shore had crawled into
the grass and hidden. Circling the pond, which was but 30 or 40
feet in width by about the same number of yards in length, I soon
reached my bird. Without hesitation she dove and crossed to the
other side under water. The water was fairly clear and not more
than 30 inches deep and the bird's movements could be plainly
watched. The body was held at an angle, with the neck extended but
not straight and the head slightly raised. The wings were partly
opened but were not used and the feet struck out alternately as in
running rather than with a swimming motion. The bird reminded me
of a frightened chicken crossing the road in front of an
automobile but the speed was much slower through the water than in
the case of the chicken. The bird did not run on the bottom of the
pond but was perhaps 6 or 7 inches from the bottom. On reaching
the opposite shore she came up directly into the concealment of
the grass. This proceeding was repeated in exactly the same manner
several times before I secured the bird.
The following incident, described by Mr. Frank T. Noble (1906)
will illustrate a strange habit which this and nearly all ducks
have of disappearing beneath the surface when wounded; he had shot
two pintails, one being--
killed outright, the other, a big drake, being hard hit and
with one wing broken. Before the latter could be shot over, he
made a dive with considerable difficulty and disappeared from
view. We waited perhaps half a minute for him to appear again, but
not doing so we paddled to the spot, where we found the water
thereabouts to be scarcely 3 feet deep, and the bottom to be
thickly covered with various kinds of lily pads and grasses. A few
moments of careful search and the duck was discovered on the
bottom, grasping with its bill the tough stem of a cowslip. The
body of the bird floated upward posteriorly, somewhat higher than
the position of the head, and the long tail feathers were a foot
or more nearer the surface than the former. The bird's feet were
outstretched, but he was motionless until molested, then he kicked
and fluttered vigorously, all the time retaining his hold upon the
bottom, and it required considerable force to break him away from
his queer anchorage.
Mr. J. G. Millais (1902) says that:
The nuptial call of the drake is
identical with that of the teal. The female only occasionally
utters a low quack, but she sometimes makes a call something like
the growling croak of the female widgeon. The notes of both sexes
are always quite distinct.
The ordinary note of the male pintail is a low mellow whistle,
and I doubt if it ever utters the quacking note which should be
attributed to the female; the rolling note, similar to that of the
lesser scaup duck, may be common to both sexes; Dr. E. W. Nelson
(1887) says that this note "may be imitated by rolling the
end of the tongue with the mouth ready to utter the sound of k."
The pintail associates freely on its breeding grounds with
various species of ducks, particularly with the mallard, gadwall,
blue-winged teal, baldpate, shoveller, and lesser scaup duck. It
usually flocks by itself, however, on migrations. Its
most formidable enemy is man; for with the sportsman the pintail
is a favorite. Its eggs are also sought for food, in some
localities quite regularly, for the nests are easily found and the
eggs are very palatable. Mr. Robert B. Rockwell (1911) has
published a photograph of a bull snake robbing a pintail's nest in
Colorado. I have seen nests in Saskatchewan which showed signs of
having been robbed by coyotes.
Fall.--Although the pintail is one of
our earliest migrants in the spring, it seems much less hardy in
the fall and is one of the first of the ducks to seek the sunny
South as soon as the first frosty nights proclaim the approach of
autumn. Doctor Yorke (1899) says of the fall migration:
In the fall migration they differ from other cold-weather
birds of the non-divers in returning south before the cold weather
sets in; in fact, the first frost finds those which bred in the
United States rapidly wending their way toward the frost line. The
first issue to come down in the fall usually leaves the northern
part of Minnesota and North Dakota about the end of August. They
associate a good deal with the baldpates and gadwalls, using the
same feeding, roosting, and playgrounds in the fall, not
associating with them in the spring owing to their having gone
north several weeks before them, and feeding to a large extent
upon grain and corn fields. The second fall issue generally
overtakes the first before they reach the frost line. They collect
in some quiet piece of water, migrate at night and never return
that fall. They do not assume their full plumage north of the
frost line.
Game.--As a game bird the pintail
ranks about third among the surface-feeding ducks, next in
importance to the mallard and black duck; its wariness and its
swiftness on the wing test the cunning and skill of the sportsman;
its wide distribution, its abundance and its excellent table
qualities give it a prominent place as a food bird. Late winter
and early spring shooting was popular in the Middle West before
the laws prohibited it, where the birds arrived early, as soon as
the ice began to break up in the marshes and sloughs; here the
birds were shot on their morning and evening flights to and from
their feeding grounds from blinds or boats concealed in their fly
ways, no decoys being necessary. Pintails will come readily to
live mallard decoys during the daytime on their feeding grounds
and they will respond to duck calls if skillfully handled,
offering very fine sport where they are not shot at too much.
Dr. Leonard C. Sanford (1903) says:
In portions of the West where they frequent the ponds and
smaller lakes they are much more easily killed than on larger
bodies of water. The pintail arrives on the coast of North
Carolina late in October, and are found in numbers through the
brackish sounds. Decoys attract them occasionally, but never in as
large numbers as the other ducks, for they are always wary and
quick to suspect danger. These birds can be distinguished afar.
The white under parts of the male and their long necks mark them
at once. The flight is high in lines abreast, but almost before
the flock is seen they are by and out of sight. When about to
decoy no bird is more graceful; they often drop from a height far
out of range and circle about the stool, watching carefully for
the slightest motion; finally they swing within range and plunge
among the wooden ducks. After realizing the mistake, they spring
up all together, and are out of shot almost before you realize the
chance is gone.
Winter.--Like many other
fresh-water ducks of the interior the pintail winters largely on
the warm seacoasts of the Southern States, though it is also
abundant among the inland ponds and marshes below the frost line.
It is particularly abundant in Florida, as the following account
by Mr. C. J. Maynard (1896) will show:
On one occasion, while I was making my way down Indian
River, numbers of these ducks were passing over my head southward.
They flew in straggling flocks, consisting of from twenty to some
hundreds of specimens, and one company followed another so closely
that there was an almost unbroken line. They continued to move in
this manner all morning; thus many thousands of individuals must
have passed us. Shortly after noon the began to alight along the
beaches in such numbers that they fairly covered the ground, and
were so unsuspicious that my assistant, who had left the boat some
time previous, walked within a few yards of them, and killed three
or four with a single discharge of a light gun which was merely
loaded with a small charge of dust shot. This occurred in early
March and the birds were evidently gathering, preparatory to
migrating northward, for in a few days they had all disappeared.
While wintering on the seacoast, especially where it is much
molested, the pintail often spends the day well out on the ocean,
flying in at night to feed in the shallow tidal estuaries on beds
of Zostera or on the mud and sand flats where it finds
plenty of small mollusks.
Northern Pintail*
Anas acuta
[American Pintail]
*Original Source: Bent,
Arthur Cleveland. 1923. Smithsonian Institution United
States National Museum Bulletin 126 (Part 1): 144-156. United
States Government Printing Office
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