Miracle of the warm eider duck

THERE’S an interesting paper on eider ducks in the current edition of Irish Birds.

The eider is a bird with ‘profile’, both ancient and modern. St. Cuthbert, the 7th Century hermit and bishop of Lindisfarne, had a special relationship with the bird; they are still called the Cuddy ducks in Northumberland.

Eiders were so devoted to the holy man that they followed him around. The more gullible members of his congregation thought that this was miraculous, but there’s a more mundane explanation. Ducklings, just out of the eggs, will follow the largest object moving in their vicinity and become ‘imprinted’ on it for life. This is normally the mother duck. Cuthbert must have raised ducklings in captivity.