Northern pintail

The northern pintail is a duck species in the genus Anas, first described by Carl Linnaeus in 1758. Its scientific name, Anas acuta, refers to the pointed tail of the male in breeding plumage. It is a fairly large duck, with males measuring 59 to 76 centimeters and weighing 450 to 1,360 grams, somewhat larger than females. The breeding male has a chocolate brown head and a white breast with a white stripe running up the side of the neck, while the female is light brown overall with a more uniform grey brown head. The species breeds across the northern Palearctic and North America in open unwooded wetlands such as wet grasslands, lake shores and tundra, and winters as far south as the equator in sheltered estuaries, brackish marshes and coastal lagoons. It is highly gregarious outside the breeding season, feeding by dabbling and upending in shallow water, taking mainly plant material in winter and invertebrates such as aquatic insects, molluscs and crustaceans during the breeding season. The IUCN does not consider the species globally threatened, though it is regarded as endangered in Europe.