Common Eider (Somateria mollissima)
Family: Duck Family (Anatidae)
IUCN Conservation Status: Near Threatened
While most ducks inhabit freshwater environments, the Common Eider is a marine duck that breeds in the summer in coastal regions of arctic Asia, North America and Europe and spends the winter in relatively warm coastal waters in the subarctic zone, such as the Gulf of Alaska, the Baltic Sea and the English channel, rarely coming to land during this time. It feeds largely on marine invertebrates such as mussels, crabs, worms and sea urchins (although it may also eat the eggs and young larvae of fish), and is able to drink seawater by filtering out excess salt before expelling it from specialized “salt glands” in their nostrils. Female Common Eiders are dark brown in colour and exhibit natal philopatry (meaning they return to the same nesting site they were born at to breed each year.) During the breeding season they gather in large colonies on coastal islets and construct simple nests consisting of a shallow ditch lined with extremely soft downy feathers from their chests and bellies known as eiderdown. Males of this species (which are white with black heads and wings and a pale green patch on their nape) do not aid in caring for their offspring, but multiple females within a nesting colony will work together to protect and raise one-another’s chicks, sometimes going so far as to lay eggs in one another’s nests. Once the breeding season has ended and their chicks have fledged the colony flies south for the winter and leaves their eiderdown-filled nests behind, allowing humans to collect the feathers to use for their softness and insulating properties in a manner that does not impact wild eider populations.
(Side note- When courting females, male Common Eiders produce a bizarre, croaky “Ooooh” call which is unbelievable goofy and endearing, and I cannot recommend looking it up highly enough.)
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Animal Advent Calendar - Day 10
Image Source: https://www.inaturalist.org/taxa/7024-Somateria-mollissima
