Great Northern Diver (Colymbus glacialis), Volume 4, Plate 306

Painted 1833 in Labrador; the bird on the left (featured in its winter plumage) dates from 1819.

The Great Norther Diver or the Common Loon was the “most difficult bird to imitate,” as Audubon wrote in his Labrador journal, in which he also recorded the external challenges he encountered. As he was drawing the bird in the dark below the deck of his ship (the only light came through the hatches), his sheet was constantly exposed to the rain, “with the exception of only a few inches where I wished to work, and yet that small space was not spared by the drops that fell from the rigging on my table.” Audubon had, he liked to say, gone to Labrador to follow the loon; one of the most frustrating experiences for him was that, once he was there, the loon continued to evade him. Audubon playfully defined one of his fears as a naturalist as the prospect of being “outdone by a loon,” and yet this seemed to happen in Labrador more than anywhere. His essay includes a story of a loon who played possum, as it were, drifting on the water pretending to be dead, until Audubon’s men had almost gotten to him when it suddenly rose and dove again. In Labrador, Audubon’s eyes grew weary searching for loons. Remarkably, what stands out about the male he painted in Labrador are the bird’s eyes: which are deep red, bloodshot with the intensity of looking. Here at least was some commonality. Otherwise, it was “Man against loon,” as Thoreau would describe a similar experience with the bird two decades later, recalling how on a fall day at Walden Pond a particularly demoniacal loon kept showing up where he least expected it.

From John James Audubon’s Ornithological Biography

In Labrador, where these birds were abundant, my son JOHN one day shot at one on wing, which fell upon the water to appearance quite dead, and remained on its back motionless until we had leisurely rowed to it, when a sailor put out his hand to take it up. The Loon, however, to our surprise, suddenly sprung up, and dived, and while we stood amazed, watching its appearance, we saw it come up at the distance of about a hundred yards, shake its head, and disgorge a quantity of fish mixed with blood; on which it dived again, and seemed lost to us. We rowed however to the spot in all haste, and the moment it rose, sent another shot after it, which terminated its career. On examining it afterwards, we found it quite riddled by the heavy shot.

If ever so slightly wounded, the Loon prefers diving to flying off, and all your endeavours to kill it are almost sure to prove unavailing. You may shoot at it under such circumstances, but you will lose both your time and your ammunition. Its keenness of sight defies the best percussion-locked gun, for it is generally deep in the water before the shot reaches the spot where it has been. When fatigued with diving in the ordinary manner, it will sink backwards, like a Grebe or a Frog, make for some concealed spot among the rushes, and there lie until your eyes ache with searching, and your stomach admonishes you of the propriety of retiring.