This is a book where old meets new. Like it's December 31, midnight. The moment when the old year crashes into the new with a bang. That moment is this book, a firecracker of birds that rattles, hisses, clatters, whistles, creaks, screeches, grunts and trumpets as soon as you open it

The old year brought the pictures, the new year the stories. True stories about Mustapha the purple heron, about sea eagles as flying doors, about the revenge of the water rail. Of the champion of songbirds, the meanest of birds of prey, of swans that can sing with their wings.

This is a book that began two hundred and fifty years ago and will never end. There will be fireworks every time it opens, a celebration of old and new The Very Big Bird Book .