The Northern Pintail: A Duck Above the Rest

I love getting great photos of great birds. What constitutes a great photo will always be a topic of debate since "great photo" means different things to different people at different times.

The same can be said about what constitutes a great bird ... well, sort of. While my notion of a great bird photo is quite broad, my notion of a great bird is a little less flexible or wishy-washy. I can imagine a great photo of a Black-capped chickadee, but I cannot image a Black-capped Chickadee as a great bird. (I should say that I quite like Black-capped Chickadees. I often speak with them and enjoy inviting them to my outstretched hand for a quick hello. They are indelibly stamped in the background sites and sounds of life in my part of Canada, and they're mighty cute too.) All that being said, I would classify a Boreal Chickadee as a great bird in my area since they're almost never seen here. In my mind, a great bird is one that I rarely see or one that takes work to see. Those are the birds that I enjoy photographing the most.

Sometimes, though, there are birds that are so easy to see and photograph that they might be excluded from that definition of greatness, but they shouldn't be. Take the Northern Pintail (NOPI). It's a relatively common duck, although I don't see many in the places where I bird in the Hamilton Study Area, at least not in the numbers we're accustomed to when it comes to most of Ontario's other endemic duck species. It's common to see flocks of them fly overhead during migration, but less so to see them swimming in puddles and along the lakeshore. Maybe I need to visit local marshes more frequently. Luckily, for the past few winters, one drake NOPI has been visiting the beach area at LaSalle Marina in Burlington. It becomes an annual celebrity, attracting lots of lookers, normally with their cameras.

One reason it attracts so many birder photographers is that male NOPIs are incredibly good looking birds. Most written accounts of the Northern Pintail in birding books begin describing them with the adjectives "slender and elegant" in the first sentence. They are extremely photogenic birds, with beautiful plumage emphasizing beautiful shape. They're the kind of bird that photographs well in full body shots on land or on the water, with other ducks or alone, flying overhead in flocks or from very close range.

Over the last few years, I've taken photos of them from all of these perspectives. Here is a collection of some of my favourites. All photos were taken with a Canon 5DIV with either a 600mm f/4 + 1.4x extender or a 100-400mm f/4.5 - 5.6 + 1.4x extender. These lenses make it possible to get close shots without being so close as to disturb the bird.

Portraits

The NOPI at LaSalle is quite tame, so full-frame shots are possible without getting too close.

NOPI are long, so it can be fun challenge to make sure their pintail is in the frame! 

Looking bold as it walks onto the beach!

Beautiful patterns in those feathers!

Closeups

Elegance in the details

Shades of brown, green, and even pink in the head.

Contemplative NOPI?

Group shots

Elegance meets the rabble.

Got my ducks in a row.

In Flight

Flying with American Wigeon at Long Point.

Flying with American Wigeon at Long Point.

A flock migrating over Hamilton in early spring, 2020.

A Few More Looks

The curves!

The look!

Elegant shape!

Final Thoughts

Northern Pintail may be common, but they're uncommonly beautiful. You'll notice that all the photos here are of breeding plumage males. Well, that's because they're so much more striking than the females. 

Until next time ...