Northern pintail is graceful dabbler
The waterfowl migration is under way throughout Ohio.
Dabbling (pond) ducks are the first to arrive, followed by the diving ducks. The dabblers tip over in the water to feed, but the divers go completely under.
One of the most attractive dabbling ducks is the Northern pintail. It's graceful and slim and has a long slender neck. The male has a chocolate-brown head, and the white on the breast extends narrowly up the side of the neck to the back of the head. The body is gray, and the tail feathers are long, black and tapered. The female is mottled brown.
The diet of the pintail includes mainly aquatic plant seeds, small aquatic animals, insects and waste grain.
"The first migrants usually return during the last half of August, but most appear during the last half of October and November," Bruce Peterjohn writes in The Birds of Ohio.
The largest concentrations are seen in November. Most leave Ohio by mid-December; when the lakes and marshes freeze, pintails become even scarcer. They have been spotted during 16 of the past 53 Columbus Audubon Christmas Bird Counts.
During the spring migration through Ohio, they appear regularly by the last week of February, and few are seen after April.
"Flooded agricultural fields tend to attract the largest pintail flocks," Jim McCormac writes in Birds of Ohio.
They are rare in summer, with the breeding population probably less than 10 pairs most years -- most of those in the marshes of western Lake Erie.
In North America, most nesting pintails choose the prairie pothole region of the central United States and Canada. They nest in the wetlands of the prairies but wander to locations at the edge of their range during droughts. Thus their presence in Ohio during summer varies from year to year depending on conditions far from the Buckeye State.
The Northern pintail breeds from the tundra of Alaska east to Labrador, and south to California, Nebraska and Maine. They nest near lakes, marshes, prairie ponds and sloughs. The nest -- built in low vegetation, sometimes close to water but often some distance away -- is a hollow lined with down, feathers, moss and plant material.
There is only one brood, usually seven to nine eggs, which are incubated by the female for about 25 days. Incubation doesn't begin until the last egg is laid.
Until they fledge at seven weeks, the young are cared for by the female, with the male usually nearby.
During winter, the pintail can be found from southern Alaska to the Great Lakes and south to Central America, northern South America and the West Indies.
Naturalist Jim Fry writes a column for The Dispatch the first and third Sundays of the month.