Eiderdown is a very rare and valuable commodity. For centuries it has been used to keep those who could afford it warm at night, and today it is used in specialist clothing worn by explorers, mountaineers and even astronauts to protect them from the most extreme of environments.
Eiderdown is incredibly light as well as warm. It is shed by female eiders (kolla in Icelandic) when they lay their eggs each year so that the warmth of their bodies can reach the eggs (and eventually young) that they sit on. Once all eggs in a nest are hatched, ducklings and mother leave the nest leaving a mound of wonderful down behind them.
An eider nest (bottom right) hidden by the shoreline at the base of a cliff that must be found and the eiderdown collected.
In Iceland farmers have long made use of this by-product and developed a special relationship with the eider. By providing a safe place for the eider to nest, farmers have helped to establish large eider colonies, making it easier to collect down on a larger scale. The practice of eider farming is unique for its sustainable and bird-friendly approach, working for the mutual benefit of both man and duck.
Since the beginning of June I have been working on Vigur to help ‘pick’ eiderdown from the nests that are scattered all over the island - some 3500 of them. It takes many hands and several visits to each nest to collect all the down and we are not finished yet. The wild eider are free to nest anywhere they please on Vigur and so the nests with their lining of down can be found literally anywhere, often in the most hard to reach places. It is a wonderful excuse to spend long days outside and to get to know this wonderful island very well indeed - and very satisfying to see the heaps of down in the barn slowly get larger!