The Elusive Pintail
It's just another duck, but the Northern Pintail grabbed my attention the minute I first flipped through the Minnesota DNR's Guide to Waterfowl; a handout that I had received along with my first state and federal duck stamps and waterfowl hunting license. The picture of the male Pintail had a sleek copper-colored head and bright green patches along the backside of it's inner wings, and the long tail and slender build made this duck stand out among the others. I was thirteen years old and had recently completed by gun safety course, which was in two parts. The first part, as much as I can remember, was a few classes at the local junior high school, taught by a local DNR member, probably someone's dad. He, and his younger assistant, wore off-brand jeans and an over-sized camoflaged shirt with many pockets. That's about as much as I remember about the classroom content, which is to say probably none of the lecture material, except maybe the part about not ...