Combining his interests in nature and art, Audubon sought to depict every species of native North American birds posed in action with elements of their habitats. His efforts resulted in the four-volume publication The Birds of America, which contains more than 435 hand-colored engravings after his watercolor renderings. Occasionally the artist, sometimes with the help of assistants, made oil versions of his watercolors, of which this image of two falcons feasting on fresh duck carcasses is an early and especially lively example.