Ménage a trois

‘What’s that?’ I ask G, pointing to a grey-brown lump of creature, yet to be defined as mammalian or avian. I wonder at first whether it’s a seal, then oscillate to avians, thinking of a Giant Skua. Clearly I’ve been overdosing on this year’s Spring Watch. I photograph it anyway, located squatly between two other unidentified heaps of white and black. And then it lifts its head and demonstrates its definite ‘duckness’. 

But this is not a duck I know; its mottled plumage, beady eye and graduated beak are very different from last week’s Shelduck, for example. And what are those two heaps of black and white and yellow either side? 

It’s only later - I’m ashamed to say - when I look at today’s photographic hoard that I realise this is in fact a female Eider, flanked in either side by suitors. I wish I’d waited to see a better view of all three. 

This is exciting stuff. We’ve never seen an eider duck before, and this is certainly not their usual home - though I do research their presence in north Wales and find a report from an ecstatic Iolo Williams discovering the first known Welsh nesting back in 2010 on Puffin Island - just across the water from this sighting. By now, such things may be commonplace - but for us, it’s definitely a first.