This guide covers a huge number of species and as a result I feel that it has lost some of its value to british based ornithologists. The plates do not cover all species and so do not allow full comparisons of nestlings and eggs. The information regarding the nest site is sometimes basic, just as much or even more is already available in "the Birds of the Western Palearctic". It's useful to have a lot of information collected in one place, but surely it would have been better to have more detailed information on a narrower range of species. The plates are of an excellent standard however.