This trio of rare-bird specialists have produced not only a book of great fascination for those who delight in rarities for their own sake, but one that offers valuable information on changing patterns of arrival which may indicate changes of status of these birds within their breeding range.

This book is a successor to two earlier works, Scarce Migrant Birds in Britain and Ireland (Sharrock 1974) and Rare Birds in Britain and Ireland (Sharrock 1976). It unifies both of the earlier books and updates them, adding more than 80 species to the previous total.

The authors have analysed and considered some 45,000 records of scarce and rare birds in Britain and Ireland for the period 1958-85. Extreme rarities outside the period are also listed. More than 300 species accounts are now included, most of them accompanied by histograms of weekly and seasonal occurrences, with maps showing distribution by counties in spring and autumn or at particular times of the year. For rarities with twelve or fewer occurrences during the period 1958-85, the place, date and other relevant information is given for each record.

Every species is illustrated by a line drawing, more than 150 of them commissioned for this book, the remainder being selected from the two earlier works.