Ornithological biography, Vol. 3 (of 5)

by John James Audubon

The Eider is now seldom seen farther south along our eastern coast than the vicinity of New York. Wilson says they are occasionally observed as far as the Capes of Delaware; but at the present day this must be an extremely rare occurrence, for the fishermen of the Jerseys informed me that they knew nothing of this duck. In Wilson’s time, however, it bred in considerable numbers, from Boston to the Bay of Fundy, and it is still to be met with on the rocky shores and islands between these points. Farther to the eastward they become more and more plentiful, until you reach Labrador, to which thousands of pairs annually resort, to breed and spend the short summer. Many, however, proceed much farther north; but, as usual, I will here confine myself to my own observations.

In the latter part of October 1832, the Eiders were seen in considerable numbers in the Bay of Boston. A large bagful of them was brought to me by a fisherman-gunner in my employ, a person advanced in years, formerly a brave tar, and one whom I feel some pride in telling you I assisted in obtaining a small pension from our government, being supported in my application by two of my Boston friends, the one the generous George Parkman, M. D., the other that great statesman John Quincey Adams. The old man had once served under my father, and to receive a bagful of Eider Ducks from him was a gratification which you may more easily conceive than I can describe. Well, there were the ducks, all turned out on the floor; young males still resembling their mother, others of more advanced age, and several males and females complete in all their parts, only that the bills of the former had lost the orange tint, which that part exhibits during a few weeks of the breeding season. Twenty-one there were in all, and they had been killed in a single day by the veteran and his son. Those masterly gunners told me, that to procure this species, they were in the habit of anchoring their small vessel about fifty yards off the rocky isles round which these birds harbour and feed at this season. There, while the birds were passing on wing, although usually in long lines, they could now and then kill two of them at a shot. Sometimes the King Eider was also procured under similar circumstances, as the two species are wont to associate together during winter. At Boston the Eiders sold that winter at from fifty to seventy-five cents the pair, and they are much sought after by Epicures.

On the 31st of May 1833, my son and party killed six Eiders on the island of Grand Manan, off the Bay of Fundy, where the birds were seen in considerable numbers, and were just beginning to breed. A nest containing two eggs, but not a particle of down, was found at a distance of more than fifty yards from the water.

Immediately after landing on the coast of Labrador, on the 18th of June in the same year, we saw a great number of “Sea Ducks,” as the gunners and fishermen on that coast, as well as on our own, call the Eiders and some other species. On visiting an island in “Partridge Bay,” we procured several females. The birds there paid little attention to us, and some allowed us to approach within a few feet before they left their nests, which were so numerous that a small boat-load might have been collected, had the party been inclined. They were all placed amid the short grass growing in the fissures of the rock, and therefore in rows, as it were. The eggs were generally five or six, in several instances eight, and in one ten. Not a male bird was to be seen. At the first discharge of the guns, all the sitting birds flew off and alighted in the sea, at a distance of about a hundred yards. They then collected, splashed up the water, and washed themselves, until the boat left the place. Many of the nests were unprovided with down; some had more or less than others, and some, from which the female was absent when the party landed, were quite covered with it, and the eggs felt warm to the hand. The musquitoes and flies were there as abundant and as tormenting as in any of the Florida swamps.

On the 24th of the same month, two male Eiders, much advanced in the moult, were shot out of a flock all composed of individuals of the same sex. While rambling over the moss-covered shores of a small pond, on the 7th of July, we saw two females with their young on the water. As we approached the edges, the old birds lowered their heads and swam off with those parts lying flat on the surface, while the young followed so close as almost to touch them. On firing at them without shot, they all dived at once, but rose again in a moment, the mothers quacking and murmuring. The young dived again, and we saw no more of them; the old birds took to wing, and, flying over the hills, made for the sea, from which we were fully a mile distant. How their young were to reach it was at that time to me a riddle; but was afterwards rendered intelligible, as you will see in the sequel. On the 9th of July, while taking an evening walk, I saw flocks of female Eiders without broods. They were in deep moult, kept close to the shore in a bay, and were probably sterile birds. On my way back to the vessel, the captain and I started a female from a broad flat rock, more than a hundred yards from the water, and, on reaching the spot, we found her nest, which was placed on the bare surface, without a blade of grass within five yards of it. It was of the usual bulky construction, and contained five eggs, deeply buried in down. She flew round us until we retired, when we had the pleasure to see her alight, walk to her nest, and compose herself upon it.

Large flocks of males kept apart, and frequented the distant sea islands at this period, when scarcely any were able to fly to any distance, although they swam about from one island to another with great ease. Before their moulting had commenced, or fully a month earlier, these male birds, we observed, flew in long lines from place to place around the outermost islands every morning and evening, thus securing themselves from their enemies, and roosted in numbers close together on some particular rock difficult to be approached by boats, where they remained during the short night. By the 1st of August scarcely an Eider Duck was to be seen on the coast of Labrador. The young were then able to fly, the old birds had nearly completed their moult, and all were moving southward.

Having now afforded you some idea of the migrations and general habits of this interesting bird from spring to the close of the short summer of the desolate regions of Labrador, I proceed, with my journals before me, and my memory refreshed by reading my notes, to furnish you with such details as may perhaps induce you to study its habits in other parts of the world.

The Eider Duck generally arrives on the coasts of Newfoundland and Labrador about the 1st of May, nearly a fortnight before the waters of the Gulf of St Lawrence are freed from ice. None are seen there during winter, and their first appearance is looked upon with pleasure by the few residents as an assurance of the commencement of the summer season. At this period they are seen passing in long files not many feet above the ice or the surface of the water, along the main shores, and around the inner bays or islands, as if in search of the places where they had formerly nestled, or where they had been hatched. All the birds appear to be paired, and in perfect plumage. After a few days, during which they rest themselves on the shores fronting the south, most of them remove to the islands that border the coast, at distances varying from half a mile to five or six miles. The rest seek for places in which to form their nests, along the craggy shores, or by the borders of the stunted fir woods not far from the water, a few proceeding as far as about a mile into the interior. They are now seen only in pairs, and they soon form their nests. I have never had an opportunity of observing their courtships, nor have I received any account of them worthy of particular notice.

In Labrador, the Eider Ducks begin to form their nests about the last week of May. Some resort to islands scantily furnished with grass, near the tufts of which they construct their nests; others form them beneath the spreading boughs of the stunted firs, and in such places, five, six, or even eight are sometimes found beneath a single bush. Many are placed on the sheltered shelvings of rocks a few feet above high-water mark, but none at any considerable elevation, at least none of my party, including the sailors, found any in such a position. The nest, which is sunk as much as possible into the ground, is formed of sea-weeds, mosses, and dried twigs, so matted and interlaced as to give an appearance of neatness to the central cavity, which rarely exceeds seven inches in diameter. In the beginning of June the eggs are deposited, the male attending upon the female the whole time. The eggs, which are regularly placed on the moss and weeds of the nest, without any down, are generally from five to seven, three inches in length, two inches and one eighth in breadth, being thus much larger than those of the domestic Duck, of a regular oval form, smooth-shelled, and of a uniform pale olive green. I may here mention, by the way, that they afford delicious eating. I have not been able to ascertain the precise period of incubation. If the female is not disturbed, or her eggs removed or destroyed, she lays only one set in the season, and as soon as she begins to sit the male leaves her. When the full complement of eggs has been laid, she begins to pluck some down from the lower parts of her body; this operation is daily continued for some time, until the roots of the feathers, as far forward as she can reach, are quite bare, and as clean as a wood from which the undergrowth has been cleared away. This down she disposes beneath and around the eggs. When she leaves the nest to go in search of food, she places it over the eggs, and in this manner, it may be presumed to keep up their warmth, although it does not always ensure their safety, for the Black-backed Gull is apt to remove the covering, and suck or otherwise destroy the eggs.

No sooner are the young hatched than they are led to the water, even when it is a mile distant, and the travelling difficult, both for the parent bird and her brood; but when it happens that the nest has been placed among rocks over the water, the Eider, like the Wood Duck, carries the young in her bill to their favourite element. I felt very anxious to find a nest placed over a soft bed of moss or other plants, to see, whether, like the Wood Duck on such occasions, the Eider would suffer her young ones to fall from the nest; but unfortunately I had no opportunity of observing a case of this kind. The care which the mother takes of her young for two or three weeks, cannot be exceeded. She leads them gently in a close flock in shallow waters, where, by diving, they procure food, and at times, when the young are fatigued, and at some distance from the shore, she sinks her body in the water, and receives them on her back, where they remain several minutes. At the approach of their merciless enemy, the Black-backed Gull, the mother beats the water with her wings, as if intending to raise the spray around her, and on her uttering a peculiar sound, the young dive in all directions, while she endeavours to entice the marauder to follow her, by feigning lameness, or she leaps out of the water and attacks her enemy, often so vigorously, that, exhausted and disappointed, he is glad to fly off, on which she alights near the rocks, among which she expects to find her brood, and calls them to her side. Now and then I saw two females which had formed an attachment to each other, as if for the purpose of more effectually contributing to the safety of their young, and it was very seldom that I saw these prudent mothers assailed by the gull.