As far as I know eiders have never been "semi domesticated" here in
Scandinavia. There is certainly not the slightest evidence for this from
Sweden. However in most areas the breeding females have always been very
carefully protected in order to maximize the number of valuable eiderdown
nests and to a large extent this tradition is still maintained even though
eiderdown collection is not much practiced nowadays. The result of this is
that the nesting females are often almost incredibly unafraid of humans.
However they are still quite wild birds.
In the Western Nordic area (including Greenland) nesting "boxes" of flat
rocks were reportedly built to encourage eider breeding and protect the
females from predation. I haven't seen this myself, but the custom is
described in Ingstad, Helge 1960: Landet under leidarstjernen: en ferd til
Grönlands norröne bygder. Oslo, Gyldendal, 592 pp.
Given these factors it is quite possible that the number of breeding eiders
may have increased in areas colonized by the Norse, and a generally
protective attitude of the Norse towards eiders might possibly explain it
being called the Lochlannach duck. However Eiders were in both Scotland and
Iceland long before the Vikings
The Eider is not common as fossil, but there happens to be late Glacial
records from both Iceland and Scotland:
Melabakkar, Iceland (Ingólfsson, O 1984. Ædharfuglsbein í Melabökkum.
Náttúrufrædhingurinn 53(3-4):97-100.)
Creag Nan Uamh Cave, Sutherland (Newton, E. T. 1917. Notes on Bones found
in the Creag Nan Uamh Cave, Inchnadamff, Assynt, Sutherland. Proc. Royal
Soc. Edinburgh. Sess. 1916-17:344-348).
That Iceland was colonized by eiders from Europe is quite possible, but
hardly proves anything, it would seem about as likely as colonization from
America/Greenland. Note that it is very doubtful if there were any ice-free
areas suitable for breeding eiders on Iceland during the LGM. Also note
that Ericson found that no subspecies could be identified on osteological
criteria (Ericson, P. G. P. 1987: Osteology of the Eider, SHM Studies 5,
Stockholm, 142 pp.), though birds from the Faeroes showed
some statistically signicant differences from both mainland and icelandic
birds.
Tommy Tyrberg
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