The pintail duck, like the mallard, is relatively large, and the drake has a long 'pin' tail. On mature birds, this pin tail may be up to ten inches long, but six inches long would be a better average. The female is more brownish in colour than the drake, and is perhaps a bit more drab in colour, and lacks the long 'pin' tail. The drake is a handsome bird, with a lot of white on the underside of the breast area.
Pintails are primarily a pacific & central flyway birds, with a few spilling occasionally into the other North American flyways, but in these other flyways, they are a novelty, and prized when taken by anyone lucky enough to harvest one.