eider ducks

A record of a pair of Eider Ducks

Got to impress her! - Eider ducks

Eider down - get it !

Travelling in Iceland last weekend. Quite a few birds.

I think I'll finish up with the eider shots today. Not that I don't have more, but the remaining ones, once these three have been posted, are rather similar. So after today, I'll move on to other species. I promise ;) And there is that cool thing about eiders, that when they dive, they all dive...

I think I'll finish up with the eider shots today. Not that I don't have more, but the remaining ones, once these three have been posted, are rather similar. So after today, I'll move on to other species. I promise ;)

I think I'll finish up with the eider shots today. Not that I don't have more, but the remaining ones, once these three have been posted, are rather similar. So after today, I'll move on to other species. I promise ;)

Now it really looks like blood :eek!:

Back to when there were eiders in the river. Today's 3 shots look as if there were blood on the water. Not so, of course. Just that some of the wharves along the lower part of the river are painted iron red and that was reflecting on the water.

Here's the one of the raft just after they've bobbed back up. Note the many males stretching their necks and peering about. I'm speculating that they're looking for their mates after losing track of them underwater. But admittedly, that's just speculation.

Last one down is on guard duty ;) If I'd stayed longer and continued to shoot in burst mode, the flipbook would have gone in reverse, with more and more eiders popping up until the raft was full again. Oh, and when the raft is packed full, I can see on digital zoom that about half of the males...

The reason we stopped at Muruvik is that the Spring herring spawn has begun, and it's a magnet for sea ducks. There are thousands of eiders and hundreds of other sea ducks (long-tailed ducks, black ducks, velvet scoters, ...) in enormous rafts in the fjord more or less close to shore by...

Sorry I haven't browsed yet today. Super-busy finishing a quilt. I'll take another BF break later. On this break I want to post 3 pages of a "flipbook". I'll also tell the story in 3 parts. Today being Friday, we drove to Hell, as DH does every Friday to circulate historical photos among the...

Good morning folks! I'm back home again. Got home about half past midnight last night, and found it's turned to winter here while I've been gone. Pics just this minute of a fieldfare eating my apple-on-a-stick in the snow, but those aren't processed yet, of course. Now breakfast, then off to...

The male eiders are starting to call. Also note this guy's breast starting to show pink. Their call is dove-like, only spookier. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-tyne-13688287

I knew eiders ate mussels. What I didn't know was that they ate the big horse mussels, and that they swallowed them whole - shell, barnacles and all |8.| This guy struggled for some time before getting it down. I choked just watching him. Still, the mussels are why we can get fairly close to the...

Another shot taken through the car window as the rain came down. I parked for a while where I could sight along the reflections from an orangey street lamp on the far dock and wait for the eiders or long-tails to swim through the reflections.

Not all that late (about 3:30 pm), but sun was setting and night was coming on, so the eiders were gathering into one large (!) flock for the night. There were other species out on the fjord that day - long-tailed ducks, velvet scoters, common scoters, guillemots - but they were further out...

I was hearing them "cooing", but it didn't strike me until I got the images on the screen and saw the males' puffed-up breasts and how the males were circling around the females that maybe courtship was already starting. I guess they mate quite early in the Spring, what we humans would...

I was hearing them "cooing", but it didn't strike me until I got the images on the screen and saw the males' puffed-up breasts and how the males were circling around the females that maybe courtship was already starting. I guess they mate quite early in the Spring, what we humans would...

The department's summer party was on Munkholmen Island tonight. The first warm night of the summer, as it happened. I took something like 900 pictures of eider ducks, oystercatchers, black guillemots, terns, wagtails ... The male eiders were displaying, and I must say their clucking and cooing...

After a short hop over a few waves, the eiders landed a few yards further out in the water.

These two male eiders were just paddling along the shoreline where I went for a Sunday hike.