It is in octavo format (252 x 190 mm) and contains 264 pages bound in black buckram with a dustjacket illustrated with a photograph of a red-tailed tropicbird in flight.

It contains numerous coloured and black-and-white photographs of seabirds, most of them taken by John Warham, as well as many sketches, maps and diagrams.

The stated aim of the authors is to enable seabirds found in Australian waters to be correctly identified and to record the known facts of their habits.

Seabirds covered include the penguins, albatrosses and other petrels, tropicbirds, frigatebirds, gannets, cormorants, pelicans, skuas, gulls and terns, 104 species in all.

In the first we attempt a general account of Australia’s sea-bird fauna, its environment in the past and today, its distribution and the categories of birds found there.