"The Duck Hunter Diaries is about hunting and the pleasures of the outdoors ... but it's really about life, the life of a wandering journalist whose days of bagging ducks is a metaphor for his own struggling existence." —Hollis George, editor Writing Tips: From the Pens of Famous Writers. "Bill Burkett has spent a good portion of his life hunting ducks. And writing about it. His diaries will make you feel like you're out there on the water with him." —Shirrel Rhoades, former associate publisher, Harper's Magazine
For Bill Burkett, life has been an extended series of duck hunts. Here are his personal diaries that describe memorable hunts along with the high points of his journalistic career. Any hunter will identify and find these tales as exhilarating as taking down that first bluebill, canvasback, or greenwing teal.
The Outlaw Gunner is the colorful story of market gunning in both its legal and illegal phases, particularly as it was practiced in the great Chesapeake Bay, the Outer Banks, and the tidewater regions of Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, and North Carolina. In more than 150 of the most unusual and rare photographs from the author's collection, the men with their guns, boats, and traps are shown in action. The market-gunning paraphernalia looks strange and fearful--and well it might, for it was devastatingly efficient and deadly. He describes baiting practices, gunning with tollers, trapping, gunning lights, punt guns, pipe guns, the sinkbox--the whole bag of tricks the outlaws used. This is a fascinating account of a period and of practices long gone. Throughout the unspoken "good ole days" feeling, and the nostalgia, runs a strong between-the-lines plea for conservation in our time. The appeal, placed in this setting, is hard to ignore.
As initially planned in 1939 by Owen J. Gromme, then curator of birds at the Milwaukee Public Museum, Wisconsin Birdlife would not only describe and document every species of bird known to have visited this state, but would also depict each species with his own original paintings. During the next two decades, Gromme concentrated primarily on the latter, resulting in the separate publication in 1963 of his now classic Birds of Wisconsin. Work on the present volume was assumed in the late 1960s by Samuel D. Robbins, whose labors of more than 20 years give us a veritable encyclopedia of the state's ornithological knowledge. A complement and supplement to field guides, picture books, and recordings, the book is designed to enlarge the reader's understanding and appreciation of statewide history, abundance, and habitat preference of every species reliably recorded in Wisconsin. The volume opens with a summary of the ornithological history of the state and an exposition of its ecological setting. The heart of Wisconsin Birdlife ensues: detailed accounts of nearly 400 species, with information on status (population and distribution), habitat, migration dates, breeding data, and wintering presence, followed by extensive discussion and commentary. Dr. James Hall Zimmerman, Senior Lecturer in Landscape Architecture at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, provides a special discussion of bird habitats for the book. In addition, Wisconsin Birdlife features a comprehensive status and seasonal distribution chart, a detailed habitat preference chart, and an exhaustive bibliography. The ultimate resource, Wisconsin Birdlife belongs within easy reach of everyone from armchair appreciators and casual birdwatchers to ardent birders and professional ornithologists.
