Part 61

Clangula glaucion.

Head and neck glossy green, the crown-feathers slightly elongated; a white patch at the base of the bill; back black; lower neck, scapulars, speculum, and under parts white; thighs dark brown; bill bluish black; irides golden-yellow; legs and toes yellow, with blackish webs. Length, nineteen inches. Female: dark brown above, without the white face-spot; below, white. The female colour is assumed by the male in summer.

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The goldeneye is a regular winter visitant to the British Islands, remaining from the middle of October to the middle of April. In language and flight it resembles the scaup and tufted duck, but its flight is more violent, the rapidly-beating wings producing a loud, whistling sound. It passes most of the time on the water, and dives for its food, which consists of small fishes, frogs, shellfish, and insects; also seeds and tender shoots of water-plants. During the winter it inhabits the sea and inland waters indifferently; but in its summer haunts it seeks an inland lake, marsh, or river, where it has the peculiar habit of nesting in the trunk of a hollow tree. The eggs are deposited on the rotten wood at the bottom of the cavity, and a thick bed of down from the sitting-bird is made. As many as nineteen eggs are sometimes laid, but a dozen or thirteen is the more usual number. They are smooth and glossy, and greyish green in colour. The natives in the summer home of the goldeneye place suitable nesting-boxes, with small entrance-holes, in the trees; the ducks readily occupy the boxes, and return to them year after year, although always robbed of their eggs. When the young have hatched the parent bird takes them in her beak, and carries them one by one to the water.

Long-tailed Duck.

Harelda glacialis.

Head and neck, white with brownish grey cheeks, and below, on each side of the neck, an oval patch of dark brown; back, rump, and tail-feathers blackish; long scapulars, inner secondaries, short outside tail-feathers, belly, and flanks white; breast, wing-coverts, and primaries brownish black; bill, rose-colour in the middle, base and tip black; irides yellow or red; legs and feet pale lead-colour. Length, twenty-six inches. Female: brown; stripe above the eye and lower parts white.

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The long-tailed duck has the most elegant figure of the sea and diving ducks, if we except the mergansers, and although not so richly coloured as some species, is a beautiful bird in its white and brown plumage, bright red irides, and rose-coloured bill. During its winter sojourn on our coasts it is exclusively marine in its habits. To the south and east coasts its visits are irregular; on the west coast of Scotland and in the Hebrides it is common; in Ireland it is restricted to the north coast. It is more arctic in its distribution than any other duck, and in summer is only to be met with north of the limit of forest growth. In its summer haunts it goes inland to breed, and Seebohm says: ‘Probably the explanation of its almost exclusive attachment to salt water in winter is to be found in the fact that it rarely winters in a climate where all the fresh water is not frozen up.’ A charming account is given by the same author of the habits of the long-tailed duck in its summer home in the Siberian tundra--a vast level region of swamps and lakes, gay with bright-tinted moss and lichen, and brilliantly-coloured arctic flowers. The ducks were abundant and very tame, in strange contrast to their excessively shy and wary disposition on our coasts. The smaller lakes were inhabited by single pairs, the larger sheets of water by several pairs. Each pair appeared to be very jealous of any invasion of its breeding-grounds, and severe battles were frequent between the males. The call of the drake was very peculiar, and often heard, and was a loud, clear cry of three syllables, the middle one prolonged and strongly accented. In its summer haunts it feeds on water-plants. The drake does not leave his mate after the eggs have all been laid, but assists in incubation and in protecting the young. The nest is a slight hollow in the ground with down for lining; the eggs are pale buffish green in colour.

Mr. Abel Chapman says that, like other sea-ducks, this species gets its food by diving, but is not a bottom-feeder like the eider and scaup, which cannot feed in water more than two or three fathoms deep. The long-tail feeds on small marine animals floating in the water, and is hence able to feed in deep as well as shallow seas at a distance from land.

Eider Duck.

Somateria mollisima.

Bill greenish; down its centre, halfway to the nostrils, is a wedge of feathers which are black, like those of the forehead and crown; the latter bisected by a white line running to the pale green nape, and divided by another white line from a green patch on each side of the neck; cheeks, back, and wing-coverts white; long sickle-shaped secondaries yellowish white; wing-feathers, rump, and tail nearly black, with a white patch on each side of the latter; breast rosy buff; abdomen black; legs and feet dull green. Length, twenty-five inches. Female: rufous-brown barred with blackish.

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The male eider is a large and strikingly handsome duck in its conspicuous and strongly contrasted colours--velvet-black and snowy white, variegated with buff and delicate pale sea-green. But it is exclusively a sea-duck, living most of the time away from land, and most people know it only by name, as the bird that yields the exceedingly light and elastic down with which bed-quilts are stuffed. It inhabits the northern coasts of Great Britain, its most southern breeding-station being on the Farne Islands, off the coast of Northumberland. It is gregarious at all seasons, and is usually seen in small flocks on the sea. It sits lightly on the water, swims and dives well, and flies rapidly near the surface. It feeds much near the shore, but seldom comes to land, except in the breeding season. Its food is obtained at the bottom of the sea, and Mr. A. Chapman says of its feeding habits: ‘The eider resembles the scaup in many of its habits, and both ducks are intimately acquainted with the local geography of the sea-bottom: all its depth for miles, and the position of every submerged reef and shallow, are well known to them. But while the scaup contents himself with the smaller shellfish and crustacea, the eider, with his strong hooked beak, can crush and devour dog-crabs nearly as broad as one’s fist.’ Charles Dixon thus describes its language and love-making: ‘It is a remarkably silent bird, except in the breeding season, when I have often heard the male utter a note something like that of the ringdove, as he swam round and round his mate, bobbing his head rapidly all the time. On one occasion I met with a party of these birds evidently engaged in pairing, my attention being drawn to them by a chorus of grunting notes the males were uttering. It was a most animated sight, and the drakes were constantly chasing each other with angry cries, or swimming excitedly round the ducks, with trembling wings and heads swaying up and down. The noise made by this party of eiders could be distinctly heard a mile across the water.’

The nest, as a rule, is placed near the sea, sometimes on the tops of lofty cliffs, and is usually concealed among the coarse grass, heath, and herbage that grow in such situations. It is a hollow lined with fine grass and seaweed, and a quantity of down plucked from the under parts of the sitting-bird. The eggs are five to seven in number, and are smooth, oval in shape, and of a pale dull green colour. The female continues to pluck down from her body during incubation, until the eggs are enveloped in a large mass of it; and on leaving the nest to feed she covers the eggs with the down. At this time the drake is not wholly forgetful of her, and on her appearance, when she leaves her eggs to feed, he usually keeps company with her, and after she has left the water rejoins his male companions.

The drake is at all times a shy and wary bird; but in the breeding season the ducks, if not molested, are very tame, and at the Farne Islands the sitting-bird will sometimes allow her back to be stroked, without leaving her eggs.

Common Scoter.

Œdemia nigra.

Black, the upper parts glossy; central ridge of the upper mandible orange. Length, twenty inches. Female: blackish brown above, dark brown below.

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The common, or black scoter, is a large, handsome bird, whose handsomeness is due to its uniform blackness, reminding one of those two familiar beauties and favourites, the blackbird and the domestic black cat; and as with these two--one with splendid yellow eyes, the other with a golden dagger for a beak--so is the scoter’s blackness relieved, and its handsomeness brought out, by a touch of bright orange on the upper mandible. It is the most marine of the diving ducks, and a deep-sea feeder like the long-tailed duck. Its breeding-grounds are in northern Europe, West Siberia, and Iceland, but a few pairs breed annually in the north of Scotland. The nest is a hollow in the ground near the sea, lined with dead leaves and grass, and with down from the sitting-bird. The eggs are eight or nine in number, and of a pale greyish buff. In winter the black scoter visits our coasts in thousands, and is the most common sea-duck. It does not appear to breed until its second year, as large numbers in immature plumage remain on our coasts throughout the summer. The scoter has a harsh cry like that of the tufted duck, and in spring the drake has a love-call, said to be not unmusical.

Velvet Scoter.

Œdemia fusca.

Plumage velvet-black, except a small white patch behind the eye and a conspicuous white bar across the wing; bill apricot-yellow, with a black tubercle at the base; irides white; legs and toes orange-red; webs black. Length, twenty-two inches. Female: sooty brown; a large dull white patch before, and a smaller one behind, the eye; speculum less defined than in the male.

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Mr. Abel Chapman, comparing this species with the last described, has given the best picture of it. He says: ‘The velvet scoter is a larger and handsomer species, the jet-black plumage of the old drakes being peculiarly rich and glossy, and is easily distinguished at any distance by the broad white speculum on the wings, closely resembling an old black cock, if one could imagine such a bird far out at sea.’ It is not known whether the velvet scoter breeds in Scotland or not. In summer it is found on inland lakes in Scandinavia and Northern Russia, and it visits our coasts in winter, but not in such large numbers as the common scoter. It is not so exclusively marine in its habits as that species.

Goosander.