The male eider is a large and strikingly handsome duck in its conspicuous and strongly contrasted colours—velvet-black and snowy white, variegated with buff and delicate pale sea-green. But it is exclusively a sea-duck, living most of the time away from land, and most people know it only by name, as the bird that yields the exceedingly light and elastic down with which bed-quilts are stuffed. It inhabits the northern coasts of Great Britain, its most southern breeding-station being on the Farne Islands, off the coast of Northumberland. It is gregarious at all seasons, and is usually seen in small flocks on the sea. It sits lightly on the water, swims and dives well, and flies rapidly near the surface. It feeds much near the shore, but seldom comes to land, except in the breeding season. Its food is obtained at the bottom of the sea, and Mr. A. Chapman says of its feeding habits: ‘The eider resembles the scaup in many of its habits, and both ducks are intimately acquainted with the local geography of the sea-bottom: all its depth for miles, and the position of every submerged reef and shallow, are well known to them. But while the scaup contents himself with the smaller shellfish and crustacea, the eider, with his strong hooked beak, can crush and devour dog-crabs nearly as broad as one’s fist.’ Charles Dixon thus describes its language and love-making: ‘It is a remarkably silent bird, except in the breeding season, when I have often heard the male utter a note something like that of the ringdove, as he swam round and round his mate, bobbing his head rapidly all the time. On one occasion I met with a party of these birds evidently engaged in pairing, my attention being drawn to them by a chorus of grunting notes the males were uttering. It was a most animated sight, and the drakes were constantly chasing each other with angry cries, or swimming excitedly round the ducks, with trembling wings and heads swaying up and down. The noise made by this party of eiders could be distinctly heard a mile across the water.’
The nest, as a rule, is placed near the sea, sometimes on the tops of lofty cliffs, and is usually concealed among the coarse grass, heath, and herbage that grow in such situations. It is a hollow lined with fine grass and seaweed, and a quantity of down plucked from the under parts of the sitting-bird. The eggs are five to seven in number, and are smooth, oval in shape, and of a pale dull green colour. The female continues to pluck down from her body during incubation, until the eggs are enveloped in a large mass of it; and on leaving the nest to feed she covers the eggs with the down. At this time the drake is not wholly forgetful of her, and on her appearance, when she leaves her eggs to feed, he usually keeps company with her, and after she has left the water rejoins his male companions.
The drake is at all times a shy and wary bird; but in the breeding season the ducks, if not molested, are very tame, and at the Farne Islands the sitting-bird will sometimes allow her back to be stroked, without leaving her eggs.
Common Scoter.
Œdemia nigra.
Fig. 85.—Common Scoter. ¹⁄₁₂ natural size.
Black, the upper parts glossy; central ridge of the upper mandible orange. Length, twenty inches. Female: blackish brown above, dark brown below.
The common, or black scoter, is a large, handsome bird, whose handsomeness is due to its uniform blackness, reminding one of those two familiar beauties and favourites, the blackbird and the domestic black cat; and as with these two—one with splendid yellow eyes, the other with a golden dagger for a beak—so is the scoter’s blackness relieved, and its handsomeness brought out, by a touch of bright orange on the upper mandible. It is the most marine of the diving ducks, and a deep-sea feeder like the long-tailed duck. Its breeding-grounds are in northern Europe, West Siberia, and Iceland, but a few pairs breed annually in the north of Scotland. The nest is a hollow in the ground near the sea, lined with dead leaves and grass, and with down from the sitting-bird. The eggs are eight or nine in number, and of a pale greyish buff. In winter the black scoter visits our coasts in thousands, and is the most common sea-duck. It does not appear to breed until its second year, as large numbers in immature plumage remain on our coasts throughout the summer. The scoter has a harsh cry like that of the tufted duck, and in spring the drake has a love-call, said to be not unmusical.