A Watch Hut for the Eider Colony – 3 Days at Lækur

We drove west straight from work on Monday, Ingi and I, for three days of building. Guðmundur, Ingi’s father-in-law, had got there ahead of us and was already at work. He has been with us from the beginning: since we bought Lækur he has helped with more maintenance jobs than we can list, and he is as fine and careful a carpenter as you will find in Iceland. This autumn he has been with us from start to finish.

A stop at Morgunroði

On the way west we stopped at Morgunroði, the workshop of Dóróthea, our seamstress. She is a licensed eiderdown assessor as well, so a great deal of what makes a Zoffi duvet passes through her hands: she supplies the cotton, washes the down, sews the duvet and hands it back to us certified, with the stamped certificate in the bag. We picked up a finished 600-gram duvet from her and took it along; more on that below.

The new watch hut

The big job was the new watch hut above the colony, which we finished on this trip. It is built to stay put: six of the largest ground screws, four concrete footings dug down below the frost line, and more beams and brackets than we care to count. Below it we put up a windbreak net. The door and the windows for watching the nests are still to come, but the hut itself is done, and we think it will change how the watches are kept. Whoever is on duty against the fox will now have a roof, a view over the whole colony and a dry place to sit through the night.

The watch hut on its timber frame with the new stairs, the fjord behind — The stairs up to the hut; the frame is braced in every direction.

The watch hut seen from below with the mountains of Dýrafjörður — The stairs up to the hut; the frame is braced in every direction.

Ingi and Guðmundur raising the wall frames of the watch hut — Ingi and Guðmundur raising the wall frames.

Fixing the plywood cladding on the watch hut — Ingi and Guðmundur raising the wall frames.

Windbreak net below the watch hut, looking out over the fjord — The windbreak net below the hut.

The new windbreak net in the colony with the shore behind — The windbreak net below the hut.

Two huts in the fjord, built with friends

Ours is one of two such huts in Dýrafjörður this autumn. We built it together with our friends at Mýrar, on our side of the fjord just beyond Mýrafell, who raised their own hut, much the same as ours, at the same time. We helped them get started by drilling the holes and driving the ground screws for them; they finished theirs themselves, and did it well.

A word, too, for BYKO. All the timber and materials for the hut came from them, two trailer loads driven west over the mountains, which was a good deal simpler than hoping to find everything out here. And almost every tool on the job came from BYKO Leiga, their tool-hire arm: the machine that drives the ground screws, the post-hole auger, and a trailer of the largest size. They have looked after us well, every time.

The idea has a name behind it. Kári Haraldsson, who has kept watch over the colony for years and is something of a superman for the eider, has been pushing for a proper hut since we first talked about it seriously last year, and he kept it on our list until it was built. The last photo below is from the very beginning: Kári in the grey hat, and me, on the day we set the first post.

Doors at the garage and the dam

Guðmundur also built us a new garage door. The old one, lying on the ground beside the garage in one of the photos, let the mice in and had a habit of blowing open in the worst winter weather. The new one does neither. He finished the flashing around the new upper door at the back of the garage, and out of the offcuts he made a new door for the small house at the dam itself, where the gear for raising and lowering the water level in the reservoir is kept.

The new garage door at Lækur, the old door lying beside the garage — The new garage door; the old one lies on the ground beside it.

The new upper door at the back of the garage with its flashing finished — The new garage door; the old one lies on the ground beside it.

The new door on the sluice house at the dam, made from offcuts.

The sluice house door open, the water-level gear inside — The new door on the sluice house at the dam, made from offcuts.

Taking down the fox fence

I came down with the flu and spent yesterday in bed, but managed, just about, to take down the fox fence for the winter and to bring in the cameras. They are 4G cameras with a large battery and solar charging from Öryggisdeildin, and they deserve a mention: four years in the colony, in every kind of weather, and they have not missed a beat. Öryggisdeildin has been good to us, and Lækur even gets a mention on their product page.

The weather was with us, as it usually is. It is almost always calm in Dýrafjörður, except when it is not.

Evening light over the pond at Lækur, the new watch hut on the ridge above the main eider colony — Evening light over the pond, and on the ridge above the main colony, the new watch hut keeping an eye on it all.

The watch hut on the ridge seen from the stony shore in evening light — Evening light over the pond, and on the ridge above the main colony, the new watch hut keeping an eye on it all.

The duvet and its certificate

The duvet from Dóróthea went straight on to its new owner: 600 grams of eiderdown, certificate in the bag, delivered to the door on the way. Someone should be sleeping well tonight.

We are proud of this trip, and of the hut most of all.

Follow us on Instagram – @zoffi_eiderdown – for the small moments from Lækur between diary entries: the first eiders in spring, the fjord in every weather, and the work in between.