This week’s Bird of the Week, compliments of the Weminuche Audubon Society and Audubon Rockies, is the northern pintail.
Cornell Lab’s “All About Birds” web site calls these birds the “eager breeders,” a play on phrases which describes their early arrival on northern breeding grounds. As quickly because the winter ice breaks, they are often discovered within the prairie pothole areas of the Great Plains, in Canada and in Alaska to say nest websites.
These geese are at home each on land and in water. They breed in a wide range of habitats together with wetlands, grasslands, moist meadows and agricultural fields. They typically nest additional away from water than different waterfowl and place their nests in hurt’s means after they build them in cultivated fields. Long summer season sunlight hours within the far north, which permit young birds to feed in any respect hours, might permit them to develop quicker than extra southern breeders.
Northern pintails feed each on land and within the water, consuming a various array of meals together with seeds, worms, snails, crustaceans, aquatic bugs and grains. In the water they’re dabblers whose lengthy necks permit them to feed deeper than others.
These long-necked, elegant geese are named for his or her lengthy central tail feathers, most distinguished in a male. In breeding plumage, the male seems silvery with intricate feather patterns and a vivid white breast and neck. His chocolate brown head has a white line down the edges and his black invoice is edged in blue. Females are tawny-colored in browns and white.
Their quick flight with lengthy, slender wings and slender profile have given them the nickname “greyhounds of the air.” Outside of breeding season, northern pintails are typically social and sometimes seen within the firm of different geese. Look for them in shallow pond waters, space lakes and on the river.
For info on occasions, go to www.weminucheaudubon.org and www.fb.com/weminucheaudubon/.
Photo courtesy Charles Martinez
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