The Great-footed Hawk (Falco peregrinus), Volume 1, Plate 16

Painted 1820–c. 1824. The female on the right was collected on Christmas Day, 1820 on his journey down the Mississippi River. He drew her in pastel over two days and later pasted her on a sheet next to a male bird he shot near Niagara Falls in 1824.

Drawing the reader’s attention to the bird’s foot, the plate seems intended to illustrate the then-current name of the species. The smaller male on the left is eviscerating a Green-winged Teal, while the larger female on the right is dripping with the blood of a Gadwall. The landscape is slightly askew, sloping from right to left, which adds drama especially to the male’s pose: his talons are driving into the ground, as if he wants to keep from sliding, too. The female’s body as well as the lifeless bodies of the ducks run parallel to the strong diagonal formed by the landscape. The male’s head is turned in the viewer’s direction, while the female’s head points in the direction of the male. Even if good scientific sense tells us that in reality only the female would be able to see us, we feel “discovered” by both birds. Their beaks, close to each other but not touching, mark the center of the composition, which Audubon has left empty. In such an action-packed image it is startling to discover this emptiness; as if to draw our attention to it, Audubon has a feather (presumably from the Gadwall) drifting through the air. Humans are absent from the scene, and yet they are directly implicated in it.

From John James Audubon’s Ornithological Biography

Look at these two pirates eating their dejeuné à la fourchette [a hot breakfast], as it were, congratulating each other on the savouriness of the food in their grasp. One might think them real epicures, but they are in fact true gluttons. The male has obtained possession of a Green-winged Teal, while his mate has procured a Gadwal Duck. Their appetites are equal to their reckless daring, and they well deserve the name of “Pirates,” which I have above bestowed upon them. … It is a cleanly bird, in respect to feeding. No sooner is the prey dead than the Falcon turns its belly upward, and begins to pluck it with his bill, which he does very expertly, holding it meantime quite fast in his talons; and as soon as a portion is cleared of feathers, tears the flesh in large pieces, and swallows it with great avidity. If it is a large bird, he leaves the refuse parts, but, if small, swallows the whole in pieces. Should he be approached by an enemy, he rises with it and flies off into the interior of the woods, or if he happens to be in a meadow, to some considerable distance, he being more wary at such times than when he has alighted on a tree.