Richard Collins: Nesting eider ducks will pay farmers 'rent'

The eider, twice as heavy as a mallard, is Europe’s biggest duck. On leaving the nest, the female covers her eggs in down plucked from her breast. The grey fluffy material is a ‘gold standard’ insulator. It traps the bird’s heat better than does the domestic goose down we stuff into pillows

if a farmer offers protection by keeping foxes and large gulls from the nest, nesting ducks will pay him 'rent'. A kilo of Islandic eider down, cleaned to meet official government approval, fetches up to €300.

The ‘big hawk’ of my childhood was a mysterious creature, seen only in the mountains or on sea-cliffs. Not a hawk but a falcon, its official name was the ‘peregrine’.

According to the late W D Lockwood, the name originated with Albert the Great in the 13th century. Falconers thought that wild-caught birds were better hunters than ones taken as chicks from nests. A young bird, trapped during its first long flight, was a ‘peregrinus’, a ‘pilgrim’ on the way to a holy shrine.