The Bulletin is an internationally respected journal notable for its very high standard of scientific ornithology. It contains at least 256 pages annually, published in four quarterly issues with an Index. It caters for papers ranging from short notes to full papers by authors from many countries on systematics and taxonomy, and all the most important topics in the field of ornithology. It contains addenda and corrigenda to standard works. The Bulletin is almost certainly the journal in which most new forms are described and named.

Issues of the Bulletin published prior to 2017 are available at the Biodiversity Heritage Library.

Authorship is international, and geographical coverage is world-wide, with emphasis on parts of the world whose avifaunas are incompletely known — in recent years particularly the New World tropics, parts of Africa and New Guinea.