Northern Pintail

Amber list

Anas acuta

An elegant, long-necked dabbling duck with a needle tail — often called the "greyhound of ducks".

Dabbling duck · 11,000 breeding pairs (UK)

Measurements

In most ducks the male (drake) and female (hen) look quite different. Study both to identify any bird.

Photos: Frank Schulenburg · CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons

Seeds, grain and aquatic plants, plus insects in the breeding season.

Dabbling (tips up, tail in the air) Large (eider-sized, 55–65 cm)

Estuaries, coastal marshes and wet grasslands in winter.

A scarce breeder in northern England and Scotland.

UK wintering birds arrive from Iceland, Russia and Scandinavia.

Males give a mellow, wheezy "prreee" whistle; females quack softly.

Compare with close relatives.

Anas platyrhynchos

The UK’s most familiar duck — the ancestor of nearly all domestic ducks and the benchmark every other species is measured against.

Mareca strepera

A quietly elegant grey duck whose subtlety hides a feisty habit of stealing food from coots.

Anas crecca

Our smallest duck — a dainty, fast-flying dabbler that gathers in busy, twittering flocks on marshes.

Mareca penelope

A neat, round-headed duck of estuaries whose whistling flocks are a sound of the British winter.