Northern Pintail

Anas acuta

The pintail or northern pintail is a duck species with wide geographic distribution that breeds in the northern areas of Europe and across the Palearctic and North America. It is migratory and winters south of its breeding range as far as the equator. Unusually for a bird with such a large range, it has no geographical subspecies, although the possibly conspecific duck Eaton's pintail is considered to be a separate species. Source

Where it is now

In the last 8 weeks this bird was recorded 15,488 times across 91 areas (each area is a 5 degree square).

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Movement and weather

Each season it is first heard regularly where daytime highs are around 19°C (typically 17 to 19°C, from 11 areas). That holds across 30° of latitude, which suggests its timing follows temperature more than the calendar.

Over the weeks it was present in the past year, its centre in North America ranged from 36°N in January to 62°N in May, about 2,800 km apart.

Arrival dates

The week it was first heard regularly in each region, after at least six weeks away. Dates differ from south to north, so a region has a range.

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Figures are effort corrected and come from automatic sound identification, which makes mistakes. How this is measured and how it compares with human observers.