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Colour-Banded Eider Linked Nunavut and Iceland More Than 2,800 Kilometres Apart

Male common eider swimming in Iceland
Research · Ecology

A colour-banded male northern common eider (Somateria mollissima borealis) from East Bay Island in Nunavut, Canada, was filmed on the Snæfellsnes Peninsula in western Iceland in early June 2026. The Sea Duck Joint Venture reported the sighting on 2 September and described the two locations as just over 2,800 kilometres apart.

The male had been banded in 2023 by Grant Gilchrist’s research team. Eiderdown collectors Kristján Lár Gunnarsson and Árni Ásgeirsson filmed the bird with its colour band visible and sent the footage to the Snæfellsnes Research Center. After confirming that the bird had not been marked by Icelandic banding groups, researchers contacted Canadian colleagues, who traced it to the East Bay Island programme.

East Bay Island holds the largest known common eider colony in the eastern Arctic. Between 1996 and 2023, researchers captured and banded 11,077 common eiders there. Bands from the programme had previously been reported from Nunavut, Québec, Atlantic Canada, New England and Greenland, but the Sea Duck Joint Venture says this is the first Iceland record known from the programme.

The record adds a new documented connection across the North Atlantic for birds marked at East Bay Island. Band recoveries and resightings can reveal movements and contribute to survival estimates and harvest management long after marking. The East Bay Island field station closed after the 2024 season, but its marked birds can continue to produce information when they are encountered elsewhere.

Sources and image credit

  1. Band Recovery Reveals Common Eider Journey from Nunavut to IcelandFirst-hand project update published 2 September 2026. A colour-banded male northern common eider filmed on the Snæfellsnes Peninsula in western Iceland in early June had been banded at East Bay Island, Nunavut, in 2023. The locations are just over 2,800 km apart. The project states this is its first known Iceland recovery; 11,077 common eiders were banded at East Bay Island between 1996 and 2023.

Image: Male common eider at Seltjarnarnes, Iceland, 14 May 2025. Photo: Hobbyfotowiki / Wikimedia Commons. CC0 1.0. Representative Iceland image; not the colour-banded bird reported in 2026. · CC0 1.0 · Source

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