What the birds know

Interview with Devon Fredericksen, Team Norway for "Philosophy in the Wild"

Devon is the author of How to Camp in the Woods and 50 Classic Day Hikes of the Eastern Sierra, among other books. Her Substack is Bitten Fruit, and she has held multiple roles within the book publishing industry. In 2021, she became a full-time freelance journalist and editor. For “Philosophy in the Wild”, she shares notes from Norway, where she is privy to the mutualistic relation between eider ducks and eider keepers. She has published about it before and is currently working on a book (Pegasus, 2027) that builds on this work.

Devon, thank you so much for doing this interview. I like to think that humans can learn with and from other animals, not just about them. You work on the really special relation between wild birds and humans on the Vega archipelago, which is up in Norway, near the Arctic Circle. There is a Norwegian proverb for when things go beyond human comprehension: fuglan veit – “only the birds know”. What have you learned from the birds and their interactions with their keepers?

When bird keepers approach the nests, the mother ducks seem calm. Many bird keepers even gently slide their hands under the nesting ducks to check egg counts. This level of contact is so intimate, it’s hard not to think that the eiders must, in some capacity, trust their human protectors. Who knows whether this calm energy has been passed down from eider to eider—but their behaviour does seem to reflect a collective, generational trust. In this archipelago, the eiders are linked to humans in a fundamental, ancient way. They seem to know that there is some built-in safety in proximity to people.

How often would the same duck return to the nest prepared by humans? And do we know whether some nests are more popular than others?

Some bird keepers claim that the eiders will return to the same duck houses year after year. When a mother eider has successfully raised a brood of ducklings, she likely associates that duck house with safety. Bird keepers are always trying to learn from the ducks. What designs are the most appealing? Piled stones or timber frame structures? Overturned boats or living green roofs? Should seaweed be piled atop the eider houses for more insulation? What are the advantages of east-and-north-facing entrances? Should there be two entrances or just one? Each duck is different, which means that there’s variation in the houses the bird keepers build.

I am fascinated by a species whose byname is “the softest” (Somateria mollissima) choosing to nest in such a harsh environment. What drew you to the place?

I first visited Norway because I felt pulled there by some ineffable tug. I later learned that I have some Norwegian ancestry—so who knows? Maybe there was a part of me that sensed I would feel at home there—or at least enlivened. I’ve always been drawn to harsh landscapes with moody weather. I love places where mountains meet sea, and in that sense, Norway is my catnip. And you’re right that there is something inherently intriguing about the gentleness of bird keeping in this distinctly inhospitable place. Historically, the bird keepers were exclusively women, and the tradition was passed down matrilineally. Now, half the bird keepers are men, and I find it heartening that these men have taken it upon themselves to learn such a “soft” skill.

That’s interesting – why is that?

After WWII, the Norwegian government incentivized Vega residents to move out of the archipelago, to give up their backwards way of life and relocate to cities to work in the iron and aluminium industries. As a result, the infrastructure supporting the townships in the outer islands began to crumble. By 1983, only 66 permanent residents remained. Because of this economic slump, men began to turn to other means of subsistence living, which included bird keeping. By 2004, with the UNESCO World Heritage status, more people returned to bird keeping because the UNESCO funding offers a small stipend to those who tend to the eider ducks. In other words, there was both a cultural heritage incentive and a financial incentive.

Mary Midgley likes to stress that humans are animals, too, and claims that central to thinking about other animals is the idea of community, by which she means “a genuine unity of beings which are important to each other”. I keep thinking about the difficulties of drawing boundaries around that community. Every community has some. It seems that the predators of the eiders are considered outsiders? Or at least not part of that community. One being can always be part of more than one community. But how do you think about it? And how important are humans to eiders and eiders to humans?

Certainly, the human residents of Vega do not consider the mink population to be part of the community. Minks were introduced to the islands in the 1960s, farmed for their fur. But they soon escaped from their enclosures and began to breed in the wild. By the ’70s, they had run amok. Since then, bird keepers shoot and trap minks to prevent them from decimating the eider population. Because the minks are invasive, locals rationalize their eradication. However, when it comes to otters and crows—which also predate on eiders—the moral calculus is more fraught. They are killed as well, but some locals have a soft spot for these species, and have been known to spare them, even when they pose a real threat to the eiders. The bond between eiders and humans is perhaps the most significant in the area—or at least the most celebrated. But these other native animals are part of the community, too, even if they’re troublesome members. The task, as the locals see it, is to try to hold everything in balance.

You are planning a workshop for young people – can you share what you have planned?

Sixth graders will be visiting the island cluster of Lånan, where Vibeke, a bird keeper, and I will meet them. There, we plan to host a workshop that includes drawing, writing, and recording the sensory profile of the island: sights, sounds, touch, scents, and taste (perhaps seaweed?). The writing portion will prompt them to dig a little deeper into the ways some of these sensory details are familiar, and the ways they are new or surprising. How do they broaden their sense of place and where they call home? How does it expand their sense of community? There is a persistent fear in Vega that the new generations won’t be interested in preserving the bird keeping tradition, so certain locals, Vibeke included, have prioritized teaching young people about the human-eider connection. There’s a beautiful quote by author Helen Macdonald: “No one fights to save what they don’t love; no one can love what they don’t know.” That’s the idea behind this workshop, and behind the other efforts to keep the younger generations involved and informed. Maybe the next generations will fall out of love with the tradition—see it as too old-fashioned or cumbersome—but the current bird keepers want to at least pass on the knowledge so that young folks can make an informed choice.

If you had to communicate the appeal of this practice in thirty seconds, what would you tell the uninitiated?

There are few examples of mutualism between humans and other species. I find the relationship between the ducks and their custodians to be not only beautiful, but a rare example of how to do things differently—without the exploitive or destructive tendencies that undergird so many human choices. This tradition also puts people in close contact with not only the birds, but the landscape and the sea. It’s a way of being that deeply connects people to something ancient and vital.

Really looking forward, I hope the workshop goes well. That, and your book! Let me end on my Final Amusing Question, the FAQ that I ask everybody: What is your favourite scent?

I love the scent of wild roses.