American White Pelican (Pelicanus americanus), Volume 4, Plate 311

Painted 1831-32, possibly in Florida. Redrawn 1836 in London, presumably on the basis of purchased skins.

The watercolor and plate show the bird in profile, a convention in ornithological illustration. What is less traditional is Audubon’s obvious skill in recreating the minutest physical details in the picture: note the wrinkles on the bird’s distinctive pouch or the detailed representation of the pelican’s shaggy breast patch, which is so different from the rest of the bird’s plumage. Writing about the pelican transports Audubon back to the Ohio River in Henderson, Kentucky, where he would sometimes see scores of them enjoying the evening. But the calmness of that remembered scene is interrupted when Audubon’s pelicans are suddenly seized by hunger, and it is a hunger of almost mythic proportions. If Audubon is able to kill several pelicans with one shot, the pelicans are infinitely more effective: they kill thousands with one scoop, so to speak.

From John James Audubon’s Ornithological Biography

Ranged along the margins of the sand-bar, in broken array, stand a hundred heavy-bodied Pelicans. Gorgeous tints, all autumnal, enrich the foliage of every tree around, the reflection of which, like fragments of the rainbow, seems to fill the very depths of the placid and almost sleeping waters of the Ohio. The subdued and ruddy beams of the orb of day assure me that the Indian summer has commenced, that happy season of unrivalled loveliness and serenity, symbolic of autumnal life, which to every enthusiastic lover of nature must be the purest and calmest period of his career. Pluming themselves, the gorged Pelicans patiently wait the return of hunger. Should one chance to gape, all, as if by sympathy, in succession open their long and broad mandibles, yawning lazily and ludicrously. Now, the whole length of their largest quills is passed through the bill, until at length their apparel is as beautifully trimmed as if the party were to figure at a route. But mark, the red beams of the setting sun tinge the tall tops of the forest trees; the birds experience the cravings of hunger, and to satisfy them they must now labour. Clumsily do they rise on their columnar legs, and heavily waddle to the water. But now, how changed do they seem! Lightly do they float, as they marshal themselves, and extend their line, and now their broad paddle-like feet propel them onwards. In yonder nook, the small fry are dancing in the quiet water, perhaps in their own manner bidding farewell to the orb of day, perhaps seeking something for their supper. Thousands there are, all gay, and the very manner of their mirth, causing the waters to sparkle, invites their foes to advance toward the shoal. And now the Pelicans, aware of the faculties of their scaly prey, at once spread out their broad wings, press closely forward with powerful strokes of their feet, drive the little fishes toward the shallow shore, and then, with their enormous pouches spread like so many bag-nets, scoop them out and devour them in thousands.