This article, by Robin Hampshire, first appeared in the Summer 2024 edition of Palores.

To begin with, I am painfully aware that many people reading this will know way more about the subject than I do. It was only a few years back that someone kindly told me how to tell a Med Gull from a Black-headed Gull, or how to spot the female Kingfisher. I just found myself living here in Par, in the midst of an abundance of habitats, coastline, dunes, river, ponds, woods and marshes, and as a result, a huge variety of plant life, insect life and birdlife. I record what I see on my daily walks from home, about a one-mile radius; just a few rarities maybe, but it offered up 120 bird species last year.

Having found that we have a flourishing population of Eider here in the bay, I became more curious about their habits. I noted on our fantastic website that we seem to share birds with the Looe area judging by numbers appearing in each location. I asked myself (and others), why we have them in the summer, and shouldn’t they be breeding way further north?

So, I was stunned but not entirely surprised to stumble on Mrs (Ida) Eider and her brood of three darkish bundles of down as I walked the coast path west of Spit beach on the 23rd May this year. I had just spotted five adult Eider on a rock out in the sea, and if it hadn’t been for them, I might easily have missed the female close in to shore. I have still found it hard to spot her when she is tucked down on the rocks, even though I am now expecting (hoping) to find them.

We will never know how large the original brood was, maybe she had already lost two or three, and the proximity of scores of gull nesting sites didn’t bode well, nor the crows and even the occasional seal. However, the sea was calm and her chosen spot is pretty inaccessible for humans and their dogs. This became a worry when she then turned up close to the well-used beach, and I hastily put up a notice asking people to be aware of the new (record-breaking) arrivals. Perhaps I need not have worried because the weather changed overnight with rain and a choppy sea deterring the casual walkers but making life tricky for the little ones as I watched them being tossed around close to the foot of the cliffs, and making it hard for her to keep them safely close to her.

At the time there were six to eight other Eider within a few hundred metres, but at no time did they appear to offer any protection to the female, raising the possibility that she might not be from that group. It seems probable that the brood was hatched a month before I saw them, and significantly perhaps, there were a total of 22 to 25 at that time, numbers returning to more normal single figures recently.

Despite close attention from the Herring Gulls there were still three ducklings on the 27th, but then only a single one on the following day, and on the 29th I failed to find them at all. Fortunately, I have located them every day since, and at approaching three weeks of age the youngster is now (09/06) diving well and the female seems very attentive. Is this her first brood? Will there be another attempt next year? Is there another brood as yet unnoticed? My thanks to all those in the team who have encouraged my efforts. I hope to be around to report further.