Eider: Such a powerful stomach that it grinds whole sea urchins, and from her fluff they make clothes for polar explorers (8 photos)

Any Lady Gaga fans? What about the common eider? I can’t say whether the second knows about the existence of the first, but the singer has definitely heard a lot about the bird, because she chose an original and surprisingly accurate pseudonym. Both eiders are useful to the world, moderately extravagant and popular with people.





Our heroine is a melancholic person. She always wanted to be closer to the ocean, to romantic sunsets on the beach with a cocktail in her beak. No sooner said than done. Only the ocean turned out to be the Arctic Ocean. The common eider holds concerts and festivals along the entire ocean coast, right on the rocks.



In appearance, male gagoons (this is their real designation, guess what?) really resemble Lady Gaga in a cool office-themed costume - white top, black bottom, blonde bob hairstyle. But the females differ from our dear mallard only in their short neck and Georgian beak shape.





But don’t remind them of the latter - for such a market the birds may even be chirping. The eider's dimensions are almost those of a goose - 70 centimeters in length, 3 kilos in weight. And the birds’ manicured paws are the size of the palm of Grandfather Vasya’s electrician. Try to get a bream like this - you’ll instantly stop bothering him with requests for an autograph.

Speaking of bream, the northern duck almost never eats fish. Instead, the birds gobble up crustaceans, mussels and even sea urchins - all of which the eider swallows whole. How does all this freely enter and leave the body? The fact is that the bird has properly pumped up its gastrointestinal tract.



The eider, like all ducks, has a muscular stomach. It is better known to you as “duck gizzards”, which are sold in Auchan by weight. This organ was created for one purpose - mechanical destruction. But in the eider it is so strong that it is capable of grinding even the shells of mollusks and the needles of a sea urchin into dust!



This is what I understand, spicy food.

After a sumptuous meal, you can rock on the waves with your beloved - the birds are monogamous, although they live in colonies. In April-May, the male performs an individual concert program for his passion. After singing and dancing, the couple goes to build a cozy nest. To keep it warm in conditions of permanent oak, they make their house out of down.



The female plucks fluff from her chest to build a nest.

Soon up to 8 greenish eggs will appear there. A month later, a brigade of puffy ducklings emerges into the world—that’s what eider ducklings are called. The very next day they storm the ocean - splash around in a common paddling pool and learn to hunt crustaceans. After 1.5 months, the ducklings reach their mother’s size. After the same amount of time, they will be on the wing.



Down jackets are perhaps the best name for these babies.

So the eider will live happily ever after for 18-20 years (sometimes up to 40!). Unless it's snatched up on the shore by someone like an arctic fox. Or a polar owl. Or a person. The latter, by the way, is more likely. And not so much for the sake of meat and eggs (although where would we be without this), but for the sake of the already mentioned fluff. It is ultra-elastic, ultra-light and, naturally, ultra-warm. It is used as filler for polar explorers' down jackets.



Down fishing was practiced on the territory of what is now Finland in the third millennium BC, and it has been actively traded since the 15th-16th century.

My rating for the eider is 8 green eggs out of 10. A commercial animal that stubbornly refuses to reduce its numbers, and even lives on such a cracker, perhaps really deserves respect.