tags: Northern Pintail, Pintail, Anas acuta, birds, mystery bird, bird ID quiz
[Mystery bird] Northern Pintail, also known simply as the Pintail, Anas acuta, photographed at Arthur Storey Park, Houston, Texas. [I will identify these birds for you in 48 hours]
Image: Joseph Kennedy, 5 December 2009 [larger view].
Nikon D200, Kowa 883 telescope with TSN-PZ camera eyepiece 1/350s f/8.0 at 1000.0mm iso400.
Please name at least one field mark that supports your identification.
More like this
This question was discussed yesterday in the comments to this post. An article in yesterday's New Scientist offers some ideas:
tags: Northern Pintail, Anas acuta, bir
tags: Male Northern Pintail, Anas acuta,
tags: Northern Pintail, Anas acuta, bir
I think the elongated brownish feathers with black central stripes draped across the back are a give-away here...
Hm. I was going to say male Gadwall, but after reading David's post, I took a closer look at those brownish feathers, and now I don't know. Northern Pintail, maybe?
John,
I think you'll find it not as much "noisy" as "sharp"!
Gadwall drake
Northern Pintail drake
Hahahaha, that made me laugh, David.
Adrian, the benefits of a mis-spent youth packed off to a British boarding school studying Latin up to my 'A' Levels! (Didn't really do me a lot of good then as my first escape from the "system" was to join the Royal Marines!)
Ah. I had no idea what the joke was, but with the followup about Latin I think I've figured it out: strepera vs. acuta, right?
A meta mystery (at least for me). :-)
You're right John- presumably when one was naming the Gadwall, the "raspy reb" (Cornell) or the "short 'nheck' and a low whistle" (Ducks Unlimited) was enough for Gesner to call it a "noisy duck", Anas strepera, although I understand that it's quack is just like a Mallard, only more frequent?!
acuta must refer to the "sharp" tail for the Northern Pintail, Anas acuta