Autumn sees the welcome return of a true sea duck, the Eider, to Eyemouth harbour. According to the RSPB it is the UK’s heaviest duck and the fastest flying. It’s portliness is rather endearing. Like the puffin, it’s a real entertainer, decked in harlequin with a peachy blush to the chest and rakish black cap with a swathe of green. On land it may waddle like a duck but in water the eiders are sprightly swimmers, quick to dive when they spot dinner under the water.

Eiders spend most of their life at sea but return to the coast to breed.  There are more than 1500 breeding pairs on the nearby Northumberland coast, where they are known locally as cuddy’s ducks because of an association with St Cuthbert in the seventh century.  Listeners to Tweet of the Day on  BBC Radio Four may forever link the Eider to a figure nearer to our own times, the comedian Frankie Howerd, because of the Ah-hoo mating call of the male. It has become one of the most popular “Tweets”…….. a fitting tribute to a jolly bird.