Making Game: An Essay on Woodcock

In 1983 Valdene, a journalist and enthusiastic bird hunter, traveled around the country studying the woodcock and joining the efforts of scientists and bird lovers to band the game bird and document its loss of habitat. Summing up what he learned about this curious bird and its habits, he deplores the rapid dwindling of the woodcock population in the U.S., due in part to hunters' killing two million of them each year. Valdene makes no excuses, however, for his own delight in hunting and eating the vulnerable bird. This contradiction remains at the heart of his book in which he oddly blends natural history with accounts of his huntng. (Feb.)