Esquimaux Curlew (Numenius borealis, Lath.), Volume 3, Plate 208

Painted at Bras d’Or, Labrador, August 4, 1833.

More than most birds, these curlews proved elusive, resistant to Audubon’s attempts to draw them “from life.” As if to acknowledge his predicament, he represented the female bird dead, with the male turned towards his mate’s lifeless body, lamenting her demise. The colors of the female are fading, an expression of Audubon’s persistent fear that birds’ plumages lose their brilliancy after their demise (the reason why he would, as a rule, paint them right after they had been shot). Dead birds do show up in other Audubon plates, but they are usually prey. Audubon’s Esqimaux Curlew has acquired unforeseen poignancy since this bird, once one of the most numerous American shorebirds, was hunted to extinction; the last confirmed sighting took place in 1962 on Galveston Island. In his description, Audubon apologizes for not being able to offer more detail. In fact, what he gives us is a catalogue not of the features of the species but of missed opportunities to observe it more closely-an acknowledgement all the more ironic since he didn’t lack specimens to choose from.

From John James Audubon’s Ornithological Biography

On the 29th of July 1833, during a thick fog, the Esquimaux Curlews made their first appearance in Labrador, near the harbour of Bras d’Or. They evidently came from the north, and arrived in such dense flocks as to remind me of the Passenger Pigeons. The weather was extremely cold as well as foggy. For more than a week we had been looking for them, as was every fisherman in the harbour, these birds being considered there, as indeed they are, great delicacies. The birds at length came, flock after flock, passed close round our vessel, and directed their course toward the sterile mountainous tracts in the neighbourhood; and as soon as the sun’s rays had dispersed the fogs that hung over the land, our whole party went off in search of them.

I was not long in discovering that their stay on this coast was occasioned solely by the density of the mists and the heavy gales that already gave intimation of the approaching close of the summer; for whenever the weather cleared up a little, thousands of them set off and steered in a straight course across the broad Gulf of St. Lawrence. On the contrary, when the wind was high, and the fogs thick, they flew swiftly and low over the rocky surface of the country, as if bewildered. Wherever there was a spot that seemed likely to afford a supply of food, there the Curlews abounded, and were easily approached. By the 12th of August, however, they had all left the country.