Pintails are medium-sized ducks with slender, elegant lines and conservative plumage coloration.
The female is colored similarly to females of other dabbling ducks, basically a dull brown with black markings. Pintails are graceful, acrobatic flyers capable of darting and wheeling routines especially during pursuit or courtship flights, which are fast and vigorous with sudden rapid dives from great heights to low ground-level flight. Pintails are very wary, long-lived ducks that tend to survive at higher rates than other ducks. The maximum longevity in the wild was recorded at 21 years 4 months based on a California-banded adult male recovered by a hunter in Idaho. Average life spans would be considerably shorter than this, but relative to other duck species, pintails are long-lived in the wild.