Pintail Call MP3s
The elegant, long-tailed Northern Pintail remains a legal quarry species in much of its range, though populations have fallen sharply since the 1960s and several countries apply species-specific bag limits. These recordings suit hunters and birders alike.
Also known as
Recordings (5)
About this species
The Pintail (Anas acuta) is a duck of the Anatidae family of around 60 cm — the elegant drake distinguished by a chocolate-brown head, slender white neck and long needle-pointed tail. It prefers open shallow waters, lagoons and large reservoirs with room to manoeuvre.
The drake gives a soft, mellow whistle, the female a low, hoarse quack. It takes small seeds and aquatic invertebrates sieved from the surface and shallow mud. Graceful and long-necked, it up-ends elegantly and rests far out on open water. Across the Mediterranean flyway it is most numerous from autumn through winter, when migrants from the north flood the wetlands of Greece and the Balkans.
Legal use
The Northern Pintail is still legally hunted as game in the United States (under the federal Migratory Bird Treaty Act framework, state seasons and stamps), across much of the EU and UK (Birds Directive Annex II), and in parts of Asia and North Africa within its wintering range. The species declined roughly 70% in North America between the mid-1960s and the mid-2010s, and shows an unfavorable conservation trend in parts of Europe, so US and other regulators have long applied reduced bag limits specifically for Pintail even where general duck hunting continues — for example, a 1-bird daily limit was common in the US for years, though adaptive-management reviews have periodically eased this toward a 3-bird limit in some recent seasons as the population outlook shifted. Because Pintail-specific limits change from year to year and differ from general duck limits, always check current species-specific rules before hunting Pintail; see our full country-by-country disclaimer for details.