Great Northern Diver or Loon by John James Audubon
An archival premium Quality art Print of the Great Northern Diver or Loon by John James Audubon for sale by Brandywine General Store. This bird was plate or picture number 306 in the first Havell edition of the great ornithology book, The Birds of America which was written and drawn by Audubon in the first third of the 19th century. In this painting, the artist shows an adult and young adult specimen of these water birds on a big body of water such as a lake. The young adult is swimming in the water while the colorful older adult male is in the grassy shoreline peering around at his mate. The young is brown, gray and white in color with the older adult male having the same color body, however he has a deep blue neck and head.
Colymbus Glacialis - Mr Audubon describes the Great Northern Diver or Loon in Birds of America thus: "The Loon, as this interesting species of Diver is generally called in the United States, is a strong, active, and vigilant bird. When it has acquired its perfect plumage, which is not altered in colour at any successive moult, it is really a beautiful creature; and the student of Nature who has opportunities of observing its habits, cannot fail to derive much pleasure from watching it as it pursues its avocations. View it as it buoyantly swims over the heaving billows of the Atlantic, or as it glides along deeply immersed, when apprehensive of danger, on the placid lake, on the grassy islet of which its nest is placed; calculate, if you can, the speed of its flight, as it shoots across the sky; mark the many plunges it performs in quest of its finny food, or in eluding its enemies; list to the loud and plaintive notes which it issues, either to announce its safety to its mate, or to invite some traveller of its race to alight, and find repose and food; follow the anxious and careful mother-bird, as she leads about her precious charge; and you will not count your labour lost, for you will have watched the ways of one of the wondrous creations of unlimited Power and unerring Wisdom.
You will find pleasure too in admiring the glossy tints of its head and neck, and the singular regularity of the unnumbered spots by which its dusky back and wings are checkered. I have met with the Great Diver, in winter, on all the water-courses of the United States, whence, however, it departs when the cold becomes extreme, and the surface is converted into an impenetrable sheet of ice. I have seen it also along the whole of our Atlantic coast, from Maine to the extremity of Florida, and from thence to the mouths of the Mississippi, and the shores of Texas, about Galveston Island, where some individuals in the plumage characteristic of the second moult, were observed in the month of April 1837. Indeed, as is the case with most other species of migrating birds, the young remove farther south than the old individuals, which are better able to withstand the cold and tempests of the wintry season..." Audubon bird print #306