Habits of the Eider Duck

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXIII, Issue 22356, 29 February 1936, Page 5 (Supplement)

Habits of the Eider Duck

spring I spent several days on a northern island which in recent years has been turned into a bird sanctuary, writes Oliver G. Pike, F.Z.S., in an English journal. Thousands of sea birds n6st there in perfect security from human robbers.

Years ago, birds were shot merely for the sake of killing; others had their eggs taken in large numbers, while one species had its nests collected for the soft down of which they were made. This bird was the eider duck, which does not fly inland for fresh water, but spends its whole life on the shore, or on small grass-covered islands. When the nesting season arrives we see the ducks swimming in sheltered bays, and we can distinguish them from the drakes by their dull-brown plumage. The drakes are so handsome in their spring dress that they would attract the most unobservant. As they swim past the more sombre females, one and then another will utter a low note, and throw its head right back; this courting display is repeated many times, and later tho males swim off with their chosen mates.

A few days later the duck goes to an island and selects a spot for nest building, often under the. shelter of a boulder, or on a grassy bank, which later will be overgrown with seacampion and other tall plants. Pieces of dried grass are collected, together with stalks of sea-campion and other

similar material, but the chief part of the nest is made from the down on her own body. With her beak she plucks out tufts of down, and as incubation of the eggs proceeds she adds to it daily, until there is such a mass in and around the nest that, when she leaves, the five or six large green eggs are covered.

Before these birds wore protected, | down collectors would wait until the nest was fdled, then the whole nest and the eggs were taken. The duck would build another nest, lay moro eggs, and continue to pluck down from her body, but this second nest would be taken, and often a third, until the birds had little down left. Now there are other enemios, and two of these are those large robber birds, the lesser blackbacked and herring gulls. When the time comes for ducklings to appear, we notice that in several parts of the island ducks are standing apparently on guard ; these are birds which have not nested, or have lost their young. When a mother leaves her nest with a family of tiny ducklings following, her one idea is to get them to the sea, but the robber gulls are always on the look-out for these parties, and will endeavour to steal the babies. It is at this stage that the sentinel ducks help. Four or five will gather round the mother and young and escort them to the water, to remain on guard until they are out of danger.