This county avifauna is the result of five years of hard work from a dedicated team of editors and contributors under the auspices of the Durham Bird Club. There are five introductory chapters, but most of the book (865 pages) is taken up by the systematic list. Each species account begins with a concise statement of current status and a small vignette.

The accounts for regular species have three or four subheadings: historical review, recent breeding status, recent non-breeding status (the last two combined as recent status for non-breeders), and distribution and movements. The historical reviews include discussion of the earliest records, a summary of the information published by Temperley (1951) and a review of subsequent sightings up to the 1970s. A final section gives a brief overview of the wider distribution of each species and summarises the ringing data pertinent to the county. For those rarities with fewer than 20 records, all are listed in full.

Due to the size of this book we are only able to facilitate click and collect orders.