This guide has two parts. The Directory section gives the following information: over 1,500 colour paintings of birds of different ages, sexes and seasons maps of the distribution of the species that breed or are regularly seen in Europeextensive information on the appearance, status, voice, habitat, nest, eggs, broods, incubation, young, development and food for each of 429 species

The Life of a Bird section tells what it is like to be a bird. It is an account of survival, of the advantages and disadvantages in the various methods of growing up, moulting, feeding, migrating, breeding--of adapting or succumbing to the multiplicity of threats to its existence. Whether it is read as a story, or dipped into, it explains what we see birds doing, and the often hidden reasons why they are doing it.