14 British Diving Ducks 
every island of the whole group except Foula, which I have not visited. They are 
particularly numerous in the sound between Yell and North Rooe and all the adjoining 
Voes as well as in Unst. Eiders do sometimes nest far from the water, for I put a female 
off her nest high up on the cliffs of the Ramma Stacks in 1899. 
Winter Range. — Our winters are seldom if ever sufficiently severe to cause the Eider 
to make much change in its habitat. In fact, this duck is a very stay-at-home species, and 
seldom moves far from the place it first saw the light. In winter it gathers in flocks in the 
neighbourhood of good feeding grounds, and seems to care little whether the situations of 
these are exposed or not, provided food is abundant. On the east coast of Scotland the 
Fife Eiders frequent St. Andrews Bay and the skerries of the Forth, the Buddon Ness 
and Arbroath Eiders the adjoining coasts, whilst a few immatures work up to the Moray 
Firth, where they are never seen in summer. So, too, in the Orkneys, the Eiders do not 
go far from their breeding grounds, although they will resort to the wildest and most 
exposed situations if they contain skerries where there are mussels and Conchy Ha. In 
Shetland most of the favourite Eider resorts in winter are somewhat sheltered voes 
indenting the mainland and islands, but the birds also affect many exposed situations 
between Hillswick and Papa Stour, and south to Dunrossness. The same applies to all 
the resorts in the western islands. 
In winter a few Eiders, often immatures, come south and frequent the coasts of 
Yorkshire and Lincolnshire. They are almost regular visitors, too, to the English Channel, 
and flocks are observed nearly every winter off Rye, in Sussex, the coast of Hants, Dorset, 
and occasionally Cornwall. In N. Wales the Eider has only been observed on two or 
three occasions, in Anglesey (Forrest, Fauna of N. IVales, p. 291), and Colwyn Bay {Brit. 
Birds, viii. p. 33), but several records from Pembroke and Carmarthen are given by M. A. 
Mathew {Birds of Pembrokeshire, p. 73). To the Irish seaboard the Eider is only a rare 
and uncertain migrant in winter, and generally to the north coast. It shows how very 
local Eider-ducks are, that the species has so seldom been observed in Ireland, even about 
Rathlin, for instance, for that island is less than 20 miles from Islay in Scotland, where 
the birds breed freely. 
Habits. — Essentially a lover of the open sea, the Eider seldom visits estuaries, and 
does not visit fresh water unless it has lost its way on migration. Where they are 
numerous they assemble in large flocks on the open sea, often far from land, and will 
brave out the wildest storms of the North Atlantic. About the skerries where they 
feed they break up in small companies, but much of their time is spent a mile or more 
from shore in rough water, where few ducks or divers, except the Velvet-Scoters are 
seen to rest. From the top of the Black Craig to the north-west of the village of 
Stromness in the Orkneys, I have seen parties of Eiders that have finished feeding flying 
out above the thundering breakers of the Atlantic, and settle far out in the ocean itself 
and ride for hours amongst the white-capped breakers with ease and comfort. They 
are gregarious birds, and it was often interesting to note the small flocks whose feeding 
grounds were some five or six miles away near the sheltered island of Graemsay, passing 
down the Bring and heading out to sea in search of their comrades, whose food was 
found about the Churchyard rocks. The Graemsay birds would fly down the tideway, 
and when they reached the ocean would take long tacks along the coast, going further 
