• Bird Families of the World is a multivolume series of handbooks, intended to serve the interests of both the professional scientist and the ever-growing body of amateur ornithologists. Each volume provides a comprehensive and accurate synthesis of our knowledge of one bird family or several related families
• Six general chapters on the biology, feeding ecology, breeding behaviour, evolutionary relationships, and conservation of the birds in the family
• 8 specially commissioned colour plates by David Thelwell, showing adults of all species and many juveniles, immatures and subspecies
• 65 black-and-white drawings illustrating special features and behaviour
• Descriptions of each species individually, including appearance, weights, and measurements; field characters; voice; habitat and food; breeding behaviour; life cycle; and range and status (with distribution map). This provides the most comprehensive and up-to-date species-level information available
• Full bibliography and index

Readership: Professional ornithologists and researchers with an interest in herons or in bird ecology, sexual selection, mating behaviour, and nesting biology generally. Amateur ornithologists and naturalists, behaviourists, people interested in evolution and natural history.

"His scholarly material... is elegantly written and enlivened but interesting anecdotes. Nicholas Harman, The Spectator 24/09/2005"

Foreword
Preface
Acknowledgements
Colour plates
Plan of the book and notes on the species accounts
Topographical diagram of a heron
Part I General Chapters
1: Introduction to the herons
2: Systematics and evolution
3: Feeding ecology
4: Nesting biology
5: Herons and people
6: Conservation
Part II Species accounts
Plates
Colour photographs
References
Index