Birds:
Links:
http://www.e-nature.org
http://www.enature.com
http://www.landbirds.com
http://birds.fws.gov
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Birds:
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Common Name: Pintail Duck | ||||
| Species: Anas Acuta | |||||
| Type: Waterfowl. | |||||
| Description: Northern Pintails are long, slender ducks with long and narrow wings. The males have a slender, white breast, a slim neck and a brown head. Females have a dark, brown upper body, and a buff or gray head and lower body. | Habitat: They live in open countries with low vegetation and scattered small shallow bodies of water, like lakes, rivers, marshes, and ponds in grasslands. In the arctic, it is found in marshy, low tundra where shallow freshwater lakes occur, especially those with dense vegetation along the shoreline | ||||
| Food: The Pintail Duck eats seeds, grass, small aquatic animals and plats and even insects. They are also making use of waste grain in grain fields. | Enemies: Humans, Crows, Skunks, Magpies, Gulls, Ground squirrels, Coyotes, Foxes, racoons, and badgers. | ||||
| Range & migration: Pintails have a big range; breeding from Alaska, western Greenland, the Great Lakes, eastern Canada, south to Colorado, and along the Gulf of Mexico. They migrate south in the fall and north in the spring. Over half of the pintail population in North America migrates through California. Their migration route ranges up to 5000 miles. In the Winter they are often seen in Central America, the Caribbean and northern Colombia. | Reproduction: In the breeding season, between April and September, the female ducks have six to tvelve olive-buff eggs. Their nest is a down-lined hollow in marsh or prairie. The eggs are incubated by the female for 22-25 days. The young leave soon after hatching but do not fly until after 36-57 days. There is one brood a year. | ||||
| More information: The population of the Northern Pintail has rapidly declined: from almost 3 million in the early 1970s, to less than 800.000 in the early 1990. | Links: http://www.e-nature.org |
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