October 19 2019. Hendrie Valley, Burlington, ON. This valley is a bit of a gem sitting as it does between two thick urban sprawls and hemmed in by highways and railways. The urban growth is relatively recent, the surrounding area was farmed well into the late twentieth century and our valley was probably pasture. I doubt it was ever much more than pasture because the straightened stream is prone to flooding. In any event we now have an apparently natural valley with rich, deciduous woodlands flanking secretive ponds, soggy flatland and maintained trails; it’s a delight – and good birding too.
There is an elevated walkway that leads hikers, birders and families across and along a stretch of the valley, and below one short area, Mallards gather to receive handouts from families above; more than Mallards actually because there’s sometimes a few Wood Ducks mixed in. It’s all rather charming even if the selection of handout-food is inappropriate, and when random ‘stuff’ like water bottles fall and hats blow away.
All of that is a rather long introduction to placing a Northern Pintail in this scene, it was my Bird of the Day. But without setting the scene in this way the pintail might be just another duck sighting. Pintails are, for me, usually a distant sighting and certainly not one I associate with Mallards begging crusts from pre-schoolers.
There’s a bit more to this picture I think. The days are distinctly cooler and it’s clear that most birds know it’s high time they were on their way somewhere warmer. I believe this pintail had decided to take a break from its southward flight and and found itself consorting with Mallards. (If there’s snobbery among birds, I wonder what Pintails think of Mallards – and vice versa.) I write this a few days later and I know the pintail has not been seen here since.
When we came upon this duck it puzzled me for a moment, among all those Mallards and Wood Ducks it immediately stood out as different: longer and narrower and its posture a little more erect; Northern Pintail was not what came to mind, its plumage is not that of an adult male at its finest, it was muddier and less crisp. After some thought I concluded it is a male Northern Pintail in moult, the dowdy plumage of late summer is being replaced and will eventually reveal a bird like those above or this one.
(Photographed by me in Arizona nearly ten years ago, it was on a small pond in an area of red clayey silt, a background colour that seems to distort the bird’s true colour.)