Eider duck courtship

I watched this little group of courting eider ducks at North Shields Fish Quay last week.

At this time of year the drakes are dressed in their finest courting plumage. Their feathers are so smooth that the birds look almost as if they are made of ceramic. 

Their main ploy for attracting the admiration of the females is to throw their head back, inflate that pink chest and emit the most delightful, comical cooing call, which sounds as though they are perpetually surprised. You can hear by clicking here.

Occasionally they flick water into the air with their beaks.

The females aren't always impressed and if the drakes get too familiar their respond by giving them a little nip with their beaks.

Eider Duck and Chips

Today's Guardian Country Diary concerns a trip to Seahouses harbour, on what turned out to be a wet Sunday.

This is one of the best places I know of to watch eider ducks at close quarters because a flock always congregates in the harbour during spring courtship. Better still, they have a liking for chips, so if you chuck them a chip from your fish 'n chips they'll paddle within close camera range. The breeding plumage of the drakes is truly magnificent and their 'ah-hoooo' courtship calls charm onlookers, as well as the female ducks.

The female ducks' brown mottled plumage provides excellent camouflage when they sit amongst wrack-covered rocks at low tide, as well as famously warm insulation.

When they're afloat eider drakes are wonderfully sleek, rakish birds but there's a lot below the waterline that's rather less elegant....

.... including a portly belly, knobbly knees ....

.... and big feet, that give them the kick that they need for diving for crabs............ if there are no chips on the menu.

Click here for more pictures of eiders and their ducklings 

Click here for the excellent Farne Islands Blog, where eiders have recently begun nesting

What does it feel like to swallow a live crab...?

 After yesterday's gales the sea was a tad choppy along the Roker seafront at Sunderland today.....

.... but with reassuring British fortitude this couple were taking afternoon tea on the promenade as the waves smacked into the sea wall...

 .... meanwhile, in the sheltered mouth of the River Wear this eider duck was fishing for crabs .....

..... spending quite a while manoeuvring this one into the right position in its beak so that it could swallow it in one gulp. I wonder what it feels like to swallow a live (and very angry) crab?

Meanwhile, the rough seas and rising tide had driven the turnstones up onto the promenade .......

.... where the starlings were taking a bath in the puddles left by yesterday's torrential rain.

Life Skills

All along the Northumbrian coast there are eider ducklings learning the rudiments of survival. From the moment they hatch they are completely at home in the sea, bobbing in the surf as buoyant as corks and using those over-sized feet to dive below the waves and explore the seabed.

At this stage they're too small to hunt larger shore crabs that are adults' favourite food items, so explore every nook and cranny for something edible that.....

..... might be dislodged by the incoming tide, all under the watchful gaze ....

... of an anxious adult. Once chuckling alarm call from her and they all head for the comparative safety of the sea....

Photographed at Craster on the Northumberland coast, at the weekend.

Christmas Dinner in a Bun

A combination of cabin fever, after too many days of snow, and a burning desire to break the mould of our typical Christmas led us to take our Christmas dinner in picnic form today, on the seafront at Tynemouth. And mighty fine it was too; glorious sunshine for a post-picnic walk along to North Shields fish quay and back. Two of the beneficiaries of our alfresco Christmas dinner were this black-headed gull............

...and this feral pigeon - both fine specimens of nature's waste disposal units.

The walk to North Shields yielded this handsome curlew...and......

... numerous oystercatchers whose beaks almost glowed in the low-angle winter sunshine and which....

....hopped with great aplomb from rock to rock, plus........

.... this crow that had found its own Christmas dinner that it had to defend against some pretty fierce-looking...

...great black-backed gulls..... while, also in black-and-white, up at the fish quay we came across this....

... grubby-looking pied wagtail, looking for scraps, and a...

... drake eider swimming .........

amongst the trawlers that were in harbour for Christmas. Then, on the way back we passed .....

... turnstones, that seemed to have added de-icing grit to their diet, and ....

... this very smartly turned-out redshank, complete with leg ring. But, best of all, there were scores of these wonderful...

... golden plovers, whose feather edges literally glowed golden in the afternoon sunlight. In about three and a half months I'll be listening to their plaintive calls as they begin to arrive back on their breeding grounds on Chapel Fell in Weardale.

A Christmas day to remember.

Merry Christmas to all........