Down and Eiderducks

Lånan is the realm of the eider duck. The islanders have taken care of the birds, made nests and looked after them during the breeding season. As a reward the birds have returned each spring and provided both eggs and down. An exciting and little known culture has developed around the work with the nests and down. It is a story which shows the islanders awareness that when you give something, you also receive.

The eider duck has been regarded as a domestic animal along the whole coast of Helgeland. It is a “sacred bird” which people have protected. The task of making up the nests and looking after the birds during the breeding season has led to a special bird-man relationship. The eider duck returns to the same nest year after year and becomes an old acquaintance.

The eider duck flies in from the sea and in April they flock around the islands to nest. The eider duck remains faithful to previous nesting places. The eggs are laid in May and June. Several nights the eider duck and drake go ashore to look for a suitable nest. This is a critical period, for just then the birds are extremely shy. When the duck has found a suitable nest, she makes it comfortable, whilst the drake keeps her company. The drakes then leave the breeding place and in flock fly out to sea to moult. They return at the beginning of September.

THE NESTS

The purpose of making the nests for the eider is to provide for their need of dry and protective shelter. However, it is also to safeguard the down by making a nest which keeps it as clean and dry as possible. That is also the reason why one puts seaweed in the nest, thus preventing the down from becoming full of grass and moss which makes it difficult to clean.

Around Easter people fetch seaweed and lay it out on the rocks to dry. Both the old stone houses (”eider houses”) and the wooden, gable-shaped ones are prepared, the old seaweed cleared away and the nests remade with new, dry seaweed.

THE DOWN

There are no better duvets than those of eider down. No other duvet filling is so light and gives off so much warmth. The fluff from the eider duck’s breast has a special characteristic. In contrast to down from ducks and geese, eider down has small barbs which keep it together. This provides eider down duvets with a unique capacity to insulate. The life of an eider duvet is also many times as long as an ordinary duvet, and there are duvets which have been in use for more than a hundred years.

Down is also collected and cleaned among other places in Greenland and Iceland. Today most is machine-cleaned. However, on the coast of Helgeland people continue with the time consuming task of cleaning by hand. The down is collected as soon as the ducklings have hatched and left the nest. The cleaning is demanding work. The down must be dried, shaken and roughly cleaned, sieved on a stringed frame and given a final thorough cleaning - a long process before it can be used in a duvet.

FACTS ABOUT THE EIDER DUCK

The eider belongs to a group of diving ducks which live on fish and also other life on the seabed. Normally it finds its nourishment at a depth of ten meters, but is able to dive as deep as forty meters. In May and June she lays four or five green, camouflaged eggs upon which she sits for 25-28 days.

The ducklings leave the nest a short time after they have hatched and are watched over by their mother and/or other adult ducks (so-called guardians or aunts), while they find their own food. The eider duck eats very little while she is brooding and loses a lot of weight. After the eggs have hatched, she keeps the ducklings warm in the nest for a couple of days before she takes them down to the water.

There are often several clutches of the same age in the one flock. At first they keep to the belt of seaweed, where they find food (e.g. seaweed fleas) and shelter from predators (birds and animals of prey).

Eider ducks will swim up to 20 km with their ducklings in order to find an area with a good supply of food. The ducklings are able to fly after 65-75 days and are sexually mature at the age of 3 years. An eider duck can reach an age of 20-25 years, whilst the normal life span is 10 to 15 years.

The eider is very easy prey whilst sitting on her eggs and the ducklings lead a life of danger until they are fully grown. Mink, crows, ravens, greater black backed gulls, herring gulls, otters and white-tailed eagles are some of its natural enemies.

Eider ducks with a large flock of their ducklings in the sea for the first time. Several of the ducks have no ducklings of their own, but act as nursemaids and protect the ducklings from enemies.