Duvet days by the miraculous insulating powers of the sustainably harvested of a very Particular Kind of duck
species factfile eider duck
Scientific title: Somateria mollissima
Wingspan: 80-103cm
UK numbers: 26,000 breeding pairs/60,000 wintering birds
Diet: Shellfish
I knew the word’Eiderdown’
Long before I knew what an Eider was. When I was really young, my elderly relatives used it as another phrase to get a duvet, and that I did not question it
Any more than I question the term duvet now. Later, once I learned what an Eider was, I still failed to put both together.
In fact, it wasn’t until a recent trip to Iceland I finally made the connection, while at precisely the same time finding my older relatives had radically enhance the quality of the bedding.
The Eider is a distinctive looking duck.
The males are large and powerful, with a vivid black and black pattern and also a patch of yellowish green on the nape. They have a black cap that makes their eye undetectable and also a long, sloped yellow bill. The females are a little less impressive, with a easy plumage, but the same elongated, sloping bill which makes them simple to recognize.
Even if the males did not look as distinct as they do, the dimensions might also give them away. The Eider is the most peculiar duck in Europe, with an average weight of approximately 2 kilograms (our smallest duck is That the Teal, which weighs in at approximately 350g). Despite its size, the bird can be agile,
Also athletic. To begin with, it’s extremely fast in flight. Eider have been clocked at speeds of around 70mph, making it one of the fastest birds in the world in level flight (that is not only out of ducks, incidentally, it’s out of all birds). Its aerial capability is matched with its aquatic capability.
Eiders can dive to depths up to 20 metres to scour the ocean ground for crustaceans and molluscs. These are consumed whole, including cubes, which can be crushed in the gizzard and excreted.
Superpower
Despite these impressive statistics, it isn’t athleticism that’s given the Eider its own renown. For this, we must return to the female Eider, that has a sort of superpower that sets it apart from any other bird.
The down feathers are most visible on chicks, which can be completely covered together, before the vaned feathers grow in.
If you look at a vaned feather through a microscope, you’ll see a series of closely
Connected hairs coming from a hard central spine. When you have a look in Eider down through a microscope, you will see a gentle tangled fluff,with no hard spine, but rather soft wispy branches spreading out in all directions.
On Every branch are tiny hooks that help the down to cling together, but in addition trap pockets of air which are heated
From the bird’s body. This structure creates the Eider down extremely collapsible and also the best insulator known to man.
Synthetic or natural, there’s absolutely no substance in the world that can match the warmth-to- weight ratio of Eider down.
People, obviously, were quick to realise this and Eider down was used as an insulator for centuries. It is still farmed now, though’farmed’ is not quite the ideal word, more like traded.Around 75% of the planet’s Eider down is accumulated in Iceland, with the remainder coming from Norway, Canada, Denmark and Greenland. How it works is straightforward. A farmer will cultivate a field on a shore where the Eider is known to nest — some farmers go as far as making small huts in which the Eider can discover additional protection against the elements. The Eider is a social network and so sometimes countless birds will call the same area home. The male will probably be present, also, sitting by the female while she lays and
Incubates like a father in the waiting area of a maternity ward.
The females create a nest from down feathers plucked from the breast in which they will put up to six eggs (a book from the late 1920s concerning the nesting habits of the Eider on Orkney, suggested that the eggs are laid on a bed of heather and grass, and that absolutely no down is plucked until the third egg has been set, at which point the plucking begins. I couldn’t locate any additional source, so I can’t vouch for it, but it is a wonderful anecdote and might well be true).
The incubation period lasts up to 25 days, during which time the females won’t depart the nest, to consume. Even though the birds are incubating, the farmers will be working behind the scenes to protect the colony from predators, chiefly Arctic Fox, mostly through the building and maintenance of powerful fences, though there is, sadly, some shooting included.
Valuable crop
Aside from that, the Eiders are left entirely alone. Any disturbance
Could get the female to flee, but not until she has secreted oily excrement on the eggs meant to put off some predators, but which may also ruin the precious down nest.
Once the chicks hatch, the female leads them down to the sea, in which they will team up with other new households to form large’crèches’, in which a couple of adult females will guard the collection of girls, while others seeking food.
Though Eiders often nest in precisely the same area, they construct a new nest every year and therefore, once the chicks have fledged, the old nest is waste material to the duck.
It’s now that the farmer steps in and hastens the valuable harvest, which can be dried, dried and prepared for sale.
The duck sacrifice nothing, in actuality, it increases its chance of a successful nest by being on land protected by the farmer, and the farmer retains the nest in exchange. It’s perhaps the most symbiotic relationship in the animal-human world.
The global population of Eider only generates around four metric tons of down each year, which is only enough to make about 4,000 duvets. This shortage coupled with the insulation properties makes Eider down extremely pricey. To give you an idea, in the event that you wanted to buy a 100% Eider down duvet you should be ready to spend a bit over #8,000 at the time of writing (so I suspect my loved ones’Eiderdowns’ weren’t the real deal!) . In the united kingdom, Eider could be seen year round; at summer, in Scotland, Northern Ireland and the north west of England, and at winter all over the shore. They’re exclusively a sea duck and will almost never be on freshwater.
There’s a particularly interesting colony of Eider on the Farne Islands in Northumberland. This colony was in continuous presence for well over a thousand decades. In fact, they were the topic of a few of the world’s first
Harmed or upset.
The first account linking Saint Cuthbert and the Eider was written from the 12th Century, 500 years after his death (there is also a story where the sacred man submerged himself in the sea to beg, and if he got two Otters dried his feet with their fur — as I said, a pinch of salt).
In the minimum, the narrative links the Eider together with the Farne Islands and suggests at its close connection with humans. In Northumberland, Eiders are still referred to as Cuddy Ducks.
The individual relationship to birds isn’t always very reassuring. We, at different times, consume them, hunt them, trap them and poison them and the way goose down is accessed, often during’live plucking’, is shocking, unkind and must be quickly banned. Within this landscape of abuse, there is something deeply reassuring about our long connection with the Eider.
While we’ve been so callous and frequently cruel to numerous species of birds, it is wonderful to think that for centuries, without even understanding it, we’ve kept these terrific creatures safe and in exchange they’ve kept us warm.