Orange Band: Saskatchewan

You’re a Northern pintail!

You are a northern pintail. You were banded on a large wetland called Luck Lake, in southern Saskatchewan, and will spend the winter in the rice fields of California.

Your mother laid you and six other eggs in early spring in a nest located in a field of winter wheat. Less than a day after you hatched, you followed your mom on a long walk to a small pond where there were plenty of water plants and invertebrates to eat. However, this pond dried up in mid July, just like many other small wetlands do each hot summer.

Lucky for you, pintail young grow quickly and you soon migrated south, where there was plenty of food for the winter months.

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Fast Facts:

• eats water plants and invertebrates
• a dabbling duck that eats at water surface or by tipping up
• one of earliest ducks to nest in North America each spring
• males don’t quack but call with a high pitched whistle
• During the past twenty years pintail numbers have dropped dramatically. Ducks Unlimited Canada scientists are working hard with others to find out why and ways to help the pintails to recover.