A male and female pair of nesting Eider Ducks.

ABOUT EIDERDOWN   

Eiderdown (or eider down) is the lightest, warmest and most coveted down in the world.  It comes from the breast of the female eider in building her nest.

                   Eiderdown             

The eider is a large, arctic duck, somateria mollissima, which has been protected by law in Iceland for over a century. Every spring it returns ashore from its habitat, the North Atlantic ocean , makes a nest, sheds 17 grams of gray, very light down into it and lays 4-5 big eggs. After its ducklings have hatched, all eiders return to the ocean.

Eider duck nest with eggs

Once the nest is abandoned by the mother eider duck, the eiderdown is ready to be gathered. The fowl are not disturbed, and are in fact drawn to these safe regions by the farmers who supply nourishment and protect eider from poachers. The symbiotic relationship between wild eider duck and farmer has existed for ages and ensures the continued presence of a handsome rare bird and an invaluable resource.

The down left behind, comes only from female, fully grown, live birds. This makes it always mature and uniform.

Currently, the majority of eiderdown on the world market comes from Iceland where harvesting it is a thousand year old tradition. Only 2.5 tons are properly gathered every spring and cleaned by specialized, secret technology which is protected by Icelandic law.

A particularly notable group of Common Eiders is the colony on the Farne Islands in Northumberland, Britain. These eider ducks were the focus of the first ever bird protection laws ushered in by Saint Cuthbert in the year 676 A.D. Nearly 1,000 eider birds continue to nest on these islands every year. As St. Cuthbert is the patron saint of Northumberland, it was rather fitting that the Eider should be deemed the country's emblem bird species. Furthermore, Eiders are still frequently referred to as Cuddy's ducks in the region--"Cuddy" being the idiomatic form of Cuthbert.