{"id":8936,"date":"2014-07-12T03:52:40","date_gmt":"2014-07-12T10:52:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/birdaz.com\/blog\/?p=8936"},"modified":"2014-07-11T12:49:19","modified_gmt":"2014-07-11T19:49:19","slug":"americas-first-northern-pintail","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/birdaz.com\/blog\/2014\/07\/12\/americas-first-northern-pintail\/","title":{"rendered":"America’s First Northern Pintail"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Northern<\/a><\/p>\n

There’s nothing like a flock of ducks to warm the homesick birder’s heart. Almost anywhere in the northern hemisphere, that flock is likely to include a familiar species or two, and the pleasure of recognition far outweighs the disappointment of discovering “just” a mallard or a gadwall or a scaup.<\/p>\n

\"Northern<\/a><\/p>\n

The northern pintail of Eurasia and America is\u00a0now generally considered monotypic: that is to say, the populations\u00a0of that species in the Old World and those in\u00a0the New are said not to exhibit any consistent differences that would allow or require the naming\u00a0of any subspecies. They are all simply\u00a0Anas acuta<\/em>, the “sharp-tailed duck.” It hasn’t always been so, however. At various times, various authors have split\u00a0the Nearctic and the Palearctic birds into two races, the nominate form of Eurasia and the subspecies\u00a0tzitzihoa<\/em> of America.<\/p>\n

\"Northern<\/a><\/p>\n

As the entry in the Fourth Edition of the AOU\u00a0Check-list<\/em> notes, that name was formally published for the first time by Vieillot<\/a>, who described\u00a0Anas tzitzihoa\u00a0<\/em>as a full species distinct from the European\u00a0pintail with which it had been\u00a0identified\u00a0by Ray<\/a>,\u00a0Buffon<\/a> and Latham<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Vieillot’s knowledge of his new species derived entirely from Francisco Hern\u00e1ndez’s sixteenth-century account, published in the\u00a0<\/a>Thesaurus<\/a>\u00a0<\/em>of 1651\u00a0—\u00a0the first full description of a northern pintail ever from North America.<\/p>\n

\"Hernandez,<\/a><\/p>\n

On the male tzitzihoa. Chapter 104.<\/p>\n

This is a type of wild duck, of the size of the domestic bird, with a blue bill of even length and moderate thickness, and with gray legs and webs; the head is fulvous and flecked with peacock green, but the necklace, breast, and the greater part of the body beneath are whitish, while the rest of the bird is of the color typically\u00a0shown by goshawks, and whitish on each side next to the tail, which is white on the edges and black beneath, mottled with white, black, and fuscous above. The tail has two noticeably longer blackish feathers. The wings are silver-colored on the edges beneath and ashy in the center; they are also ashy above towards the shoulder, shimmering\u00a0reddish, bright white, and peacock green. The hind\u00a0wings are partly ashy, partly light green, and iridescent. The\u00a0female is no different.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The tzitzihoa didn’t last long in systematic ornithology: first demoted to a subspecies, then synonymized out of existence when the northern pintail was finally deemed monotypic. But every once in a while, when a drake swims past with its goshawkly barring and the peacockish highlights glinting in its chocolate head, I like to whisper a single word.<\/p>\n

Tzitzihoa.<\/p>\n

\"northern<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There’s nothing like a flock of ducks to warm the homesick birder’s heart. Almost anywhere in the northern hemisphere, that flock is likely to include a familiar species or two, and the pleasure of recognition far outweighs the disappointment of discovering “just” a mallard or a gadwall or a scaup. The northern pintail of Eurasia … <\/p>\n

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