Eider Duck, Inner Farne
Aquatint etching
500x500mm
2026
Edition of 20, prints available
On the Farne Islands, Eider ducks have a different assocation from the more obvious connections to eider down. Saint Cuthbert, the Anglo-Saxon monk, moved to Inner Farne in 676AD to live as a hermit, and was known to protect the birds, allowing them to nest next to the chapel altar or shelter inside his own small building. Cuthbert also decreed that the birds should not be hunted or disturbed, leading many to suggest this as the earliest known piece of wildlife conservation law anywhere. Certainly, the local name of ‘Cuddy Ducks’ for the Eider persists.
You can read more about this etching on my Substack, where you will find other posts about my work focused on the Farne Islands.
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