English: Northern Pintail, Common Pintail
Russian: Шилохвость
German: Spiessente
French: Canard pilet
Mongolian: Шовтгоралаг нугас
Japanese: オナガガモ (Onaga-gamo)

Body Length:  51-66 cm
Wing span: 80-95 cm

Passage migrant/ summer visitor
Breeding season:  Ma-September

Egg number: 7-9
Egg color:  Creamy white to greenish to bluish
Brood: 1 per year

Global status: Least concern
Regional status:  Least Concern

Habitat: Breeds on lakes in lowland and steppe, also mountain and tundra pools. Local breeder in Britain. Partly migratory.

Identification: Nearly Mallard-sized but much more slim and elegant. Wings long, narrow and pointed; tail long and pointed, on ♂ markedly so; neck long and narrow; head small; a greyhound among ducks! Flight fast, outer wings swept back a little, long neck and tail obvious.

• Adult ♂ breeding: Unmistakable, with long central tail-feathers; head and upper neck brown, breast and lower neck white, extending as narrow stripe into brown of head on each side. Speculum blackish-green, bordered white at rear and pale rufous at front.
• Adult ♀: like a slim ♀ Mallard, scalloped and mottled brown, but: slim bill dark grey; head almost uniformly brownish, contrasting with rather grey body with more coarse, patchy marks; and speculum dark brown, at front thinly (hardly visible) but at rear prominently bordered white (visible at a mile!). Belly pale brownish-white.
• Adult ♂ eclipse: As adult ♀ but retains upperwing of adult ♂, and scapulars are longer and greyer.
• Juvenile: As adult ♀ but less neatly scalloped on body, more diffusely spotted and barred. White trailing edge of secondaries less broad, speculum duller brown, tinged greenish on ♂♂.

Food:  Grazes in wet meadows with short vegetation and insects.