The endpapers featured life-size profile drawings of the bills of albatrosses and petrels to aid the identification of beach-washed seabirds.

[2] Although the dust jacket and title page featured Ken Simpson and Nicolas Day as coauthors, the acknowledgements principally credited Ken Simpson as Editor, Nicolas Day as Illustrator and Peter Trusler as Art Director, with several others credited as writers, contributing illustrators and in other capacities.

[2] Subsequent editions were published by Penguin Australia under the Viking imprint in a smaller size (220 mm high by 160 mm wide and only half the weight), with a flexible, waterproof, plastic cover suitable for use as a field guide, and renamed the Field Guide to the Birds of Australia.

Additional developments were a rare bird bulletin section to cover vagrant and newly recorded species and to encourage users to report sightings of rarities, and the inclusion of checklists for Australia's outlying islands and external territories.

From the seventh edition the handbook section was dropped and the rare bird bulletin extended.