Here we see our winter-vacationing Common Eiders taking some sun together on Saturday, February 8. (Such a group of Eiders is a “paddling.”)
They started to arrive in Blue Hill Bay in September and often hunker at the mouth of the Blue Hill Falls natural spillway. They wait there for the right time to enter the Falls’ fast, lowering water and feed on the mollusks and crustaceans being exposed and tossed about in the spillway. We estimate that we’ve had about 400 Eiders at times this year in this part of the Bay. The males are mostly white and black and the more numerous females are mostly bronzy-brown.
(Prior year image)
Eiders are our largest native ducks and are among the few waterfowl that are strong enough to swim up the whitewater of the Falls. They’re no slouches in the air, either. They’ve been clocked flying at 70 miles and hour, according to researchers. (Blue Hill, Maine)