Eider duck

“ The eyes of an eider-duck are, no doubt, sharper than my own—or anybody's. Still I do not believe that even the most sharp-sighted one could find anything on this seaweed, at least without searching for it, whereas these ducklings are constantly dipping and, apparently, as constantly feeding all the way along. Finding always, they never have the appearance of looking for what they find. To me they seem to be browsing in their little ducking way, just as sheep browse in a field. ”

“ The eider-duck is a real sea-bird, and is excelled by none of its fellows in diving, while no other bird is more awkward in flying and helpless in walking. On the ground it moves with a toilsome waddle, stumbles and falls flat; and it greatly prefers the fluid element to the solid land. The birds generally live during the winter in large flocks on the open sea, and feed themselves with shell-fish which they bring up from the bottom. But, as soon as the spring sun begins to shine over the waves, the drake feels newly awakened the old love in his heart for his mate, and he renews his wooing. ”

“ This duck lives in a wild state in the frozen regions of the North. It is whitish in color with a black head as well as black stomach and tail. The female, which is rather smaller than the male, is gray except for some brown spots under the body. Its food is composed of fish, which its untiring wing enables it to catch at long distances from the coast and well out to sea. On the water all day searching for fish, the eider-duck returns at night to some icy islet, a warm enough resting place for its purpose, well muffled as it is in eiderdown. ”

“ In the winter the eider ducks seldom go far from Iceland. They visit the outer skerries, and go to the Faroes, and some to Orkney and Shetland. They breed some in these islands and the Hebrides, and sometimes on the main shore of Great Britain. Varieties of the eider duck are found in all the northern regions, Siberia, Kamtchatka, Behring’s Straits, Labrador, and as far south as New Brunswick. It seems a wonder, among all the bird fanciers, that some attempt is not made in England or our Northern States to domesticate them. ”

“ The quantity of ‘eider down’ found in a single nest is sufficient to fill a man’s hat, and yet it will weigh only about three ounces.
“The eider-duck is about the size of the common mallard, or wild duck proper. Its colour is black below, and buff-white on the back, neck, and shoulders, while the forehead is bluish black. It is one of the ‘sea-ducks,’ or fuligulae, as the naturalists term them, and it is rarely seen in fresh water. Its food is principally the soft mollusca common in the Arctic seas, and its flesh is not esteemed except by the Greenlanders. ”

“ The eider-duck’s maternal self-surrender and desire for offspring show themselves in another way. Every female eider-duck, perhaps every duck of whatever species, desires not only the bliss of bearing children, but wishes to have as many nestlings as possible under her motherly eye. ”

“ The female is dark chestnut-brown, variegated with brownish-black. The Eider Duck is so thoroughly sea-going in its habits, that it rarely even flies over the land, except to reach its nest, and will rather follow the windings of the coast than cross even a narrow headland. In our islands it is practically sedentary, only wandering south a little way during winter. ”

“ I also saw a male eider-duck sitting for a considerable time amidst the heather right away from the sea. It is, of course, impossible to mistake the sexes after the males have assumed their adult plumage, and, moreover, this bird subsequently flew down into the little bay just beneath me. I say this because it is authoritatively stated that the male eider-duck never goes near the nest. It is probable that a week or so later this bird could not have sat where he was without being near to a nest at any rate ”

“ There hissed his mate as a viper when the eider duck would bite her neck and trample her under the water, there quacked the goosander as a frog, and the terns shrieked and mews cawed, the gulls emitted childlike cries, the eider ducks cooed as male cats in rut time, but highest over all and therefore the most charming, sounded the long-tailed ducks' wonderful music, for as yet it was not a song. ”

“ Of the two dozen species of American wild-ducks, none has a wider celebrity than that known as the canvas-back; even the eider-duck is less thought of, as the Americans care little for beds of down. But the juicy, fine-flavoured flesh of the canvas-back is esteemed by all classes of people; and epicures prize it above that of all other winged creatures, with the exception, perhaps, of the reed-bird or rice-hunting, and the prairie-hen. These last enjoy a celebrity almost if not altogether equal. ”

“ The female of the eider duck gently carries her ducklings one by one in her beak, escorts them to the deep water, and teaches them to dive for fish. When they are tired she glides under them, takes them on her back, and carefully carries them to the shore. It is undoubtedly very largely by virtue of instinct and ancestral education that birds swim or fly, and the mother has only to invite them to the act by her example; but, for a more complete training, the lessons are very useful, if not necessary. ”

“ WHEN I saw eider-ducks eating seaweed off the coast of my island I was aware that they were doing something which they had no business to be doing; for it is stated in works of authority that they are purely animal feeders. I have had misgivings, therefore, ever since making the observation, but now, having seen a black guillemot also eating a piece of this same brown seaweed, I feel more comfortable about it, for surely this bird should be as exclusively a fish-eater as the eider-duck is supposed to be a devourer of shell-fish, crustaceans, etc. ”

“ Upon the rocks and "scaars" upon the coast of Norway these forlorn widowers may be seen playing together by hundreds. The nest of the Eider Duck is a very simple affair, consisting merely of a few twigs, stalks of seaweed, blades of grass, straw, and similar materials, such as can be picked up in the immediate neighbourhood, heaped together in the most slovenly manner; the rougher the framework, however, so much thicker and more valuable is the rich lining of down—the costly toll which the breeding birds have to pay to the masters of the soil for their temporary residence. ”

“ When feeding, without any doubt, upon living prey, eider-ducks are accustomed to dive, going right to the bottom, and often coming up with what they find there—a crab or other kind of shell-fish—to dispose of it on the surface at their leisure. The chick can dive as easily as the grown bird, but one may watch these family excursions for a long time without once seeing either of them do so. Instead, they now merely duck to get the seaweed, which almost reaches the surface. ”

“ Female—general plumage reddish brown, with transverse black bars; wing-coverts black, bordered with dark reddish brown; two whitish bars across the wing; belly brown barred with black. Length twenty-five inches. Eggs shining greenish grey.
The Eider Duck differs from all the birds of the same tribe hitherto described, in being essentially and absolutely a sea-bird. Rarely found on inland waters, it does not even visit the fresh-water lochs which, in many places in the north, are only separated from the sea by a bar of sand and shingle. ”

“ The Eider Duck is the only one of the tribe that risks her life, on such occasions, to save that of her young. She will frequently rise from the water, as her brood disappear beneath, and keep the Gull at bay, or harass it until her little ones are safe under some shelving rocks, when she flies off in another direction, leaving the enemy to digest his disappointment. But while the poor Duck is sitting on her 311 eggs in any open situation, the marauder assails her, and forces her off, when he sucks the eggs in her very sight. ”

“ The fact that the Eider Duck breeds on our eastern coasts, must be interesting to the American Ornithologist, whose fauna possesses but few birds of this family that do so. The Fuligulæ are distinguished from all other ducks that feed in fresh or salt water, by the comparative shortness of the neck, the greater expansion of their feet, the more depressed form of their body, and their power of diving to a considerable depth, in order to reach the beds on which their favourite shelly food abounds. ”

“ ALL ACCOUNTS I have read about Eider Ducks say that nests are robbed of their down twice, the duck supplying it each time from her own body; the third time the drake gives his white down, and this is allowed to remain, declares a writer in Good Words. But I was told by farmers in Iceland that now they never take the down until the little ones are hatched. It has been found that the birds thrive better and increase faster when they are allowed to live as nature meant them to. So now the poor mothers are no longer obliged to strip themselves of all their down to refurnish their despoiled nests. ”

“ The high and annually increasing price of its incomparable down makes the eider-duck the most valuable of all berg-birds. A thousand pairs of ducks form a possession well worth having. At least three or four thousand pairs brood on each island, and the fortunate possessor of still more numerously visited breeding-places derives revenues through his birds which many a German land-owner might envy. But besides the eider-ducks there breed also on the holms oyster-catchers and black guillemots, whose eggs are preserved and used for food for months, or are exported to a distance. ”

“ He never goes near the nest. The eggs have a strong flavour, but are much relished by both Icelanders and Norwegians. In the Old World the eider breeds in suitable localities from Spitsbergen to the Farne Islands off the coast of Northumberland—where it is known as St Cuthbert’s duck. Its food consists of marine animals (molluscs and crustaceans) , and hence the young are not easily reared in captivity. The eider of the New World differs somewhat, and has been described as a distinct species (S. dresseri) . ”

“ In the early days of summer, the female of the eider, a pretty sort of duck, builds its nest amid the rocks of the fjords—the name given to all narrow gulfs in Scandinavian countries—with which every part of the island is indented. No sooner has the eider duck made her nest than she lines the inside of it with the softest down from her breast. Then comes the hunter or trader, taking away the nest, the poor bereaved female begins her task over again, and this continues as long as any eider down is to be found.
When she can find no more the male bird sets to work to see what he can do. ”

“ No other species of duck is so thoroughly a child of the sea as the eider-duck; no species waddles more clumsily on land, or flies less gracefully, but none swims more rapidly or dives more deftly and deeply. ”

“ The eider-duck does the same, but with a greater expenditure of down. When the mother leaves her nest for a moment, she shelters her eggs under an abundant covering of her finest down. After the departure of the brood, those who hunt for eiderdown, especially the Icelanders, visit the abandoned nests and collect the down, but not without danger, since the nests are generally situated in inaccessible places on the ledges of high cliffs. They can reach them only by being lowered with ropes along the face of the precipitous rocks. ”

“ An Eider Duck's nest was found fully one hundred yards from the water, unsheltered on the rocks, with five eggs and clean down. In no instance, though I have tried with all my powers, have I approached nearer than eight or ten yards of the sitting birds; they fly at the least appearance of danger. We concluded that the absence of fish in these ponds was on account of their freezing solidly every winter, when fish must die. Captain Billings 372 paid me a visit, and very generously offered to change our whale-boat for a large one, and his pilot boat for ours ”

“ They may also occasionally dive as a mere relaxation, or to give vent to their feelings, at least so it appeared to me.
The female eider-duck—as far as I could observe—does not utter the curious note, but only a deep quacking one, with which she calls to her the male birds. It appeared to me that she would sometimes [Pg 146] show a preference for one male over another, and also (though of this I cannot be so sure) , a power of dismissing birds from her. But if she really possesses such a power, she cannot very well assert it when closely pressed upon by a crowd of admirers. ”

“ When they put on the stockings, they wrap their feet in dry grass. Then they put on their shoes. The grass helps to keep their feet warm. They also wear two pairs of mittens at the same time. One pair is made of wool. The other pair is made of reindeer skin. Their hats or caps are also made of reindeer skin. They are lined with eider down. Perhaps you do not know what eider down is. It is the soft, fine feathers of a bird called the eider duck. A great many of these ducks are found in Lapland. Their down is very soft and warm.
Sometimes the Lapps have to go long distances in the snow. ”

“ While many sea-birds deposit their eggs on the bare rocks, the Eider duck lines her nest most carefully with the feathers from her own breast, which are particularly fine and light: the nest is robbed, and she a second time unplumes herself for the accommodation of her young. If the lining be again taken away, the drake lends his breast feathers; but if after that, their unreasonable persecutors deprive it of its lining, they abandon the nest in despair, the master of the domicile wisely judging, that any further sacrifice would be useless. ”