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To the Beauty of Birds

The South Georgia Pintail Anas georgica georgica, also misleadingly known as the South Georgian Teal, is endemic to the large subantarctic island of South Georgia and its accompanying archipelago, and is a vagrant to the South Sandwich Islands. It was among the birds noted by James Cook in January 1775, on the occasion of the first recorded landing on South Georgia, and was formerly considered a full species.

Robert Cushman Murphy was the first to demonstrate that it is a pintail, its closest relative is the yellow-billed pintails of South America. The is a mottled, predominantly brown pintail. It has a reddish crown, light brown cheeks and throat, dark grey underwings and a pointed tail. The back, breast and flanks are scalloped with buff; the underparts are buffy white, mottled with brown. The bill is yellow with a blue and black line on the culmen and tip, and the feet are greenish-grey. The downy chick is dark brown with yellowish buff markings.

The pintail is widely distributed along the north coast, and the western third of the south coast, of South Georgia, as well as on its offshore islands. It is largely absent from most of the south coast of the main island because of unfavourable topography.

Favoured habitat includes freshwater pools and streams fringed by tussock grassland, seal wallows and poorly drained land next to wetlands and melting snow, as well as coastal habitats.

These photos were taken at the Stromness plains.

South Gerogia Pintail