Room to Play: Small Birds Take Cover in Sports Fields. Alison Haynes ... Take home message: Urban planners and conservaRon managers should carefully ...
Alison Haynes Room to Play: Small Birds Take Cover in Sports Fields Variety(at(the(edges:(restora/on,(mature( trees,(bare(
Background Urbanisa=on is occurring worldwide at an unprecedented rate, and with it, habitat loss, fragmenta=on and changes in vegeta=on composi=on and structure. Small bird diversity is declining in urban areas and one reason may be the loss of understorey. Sports fields are a ubiquitous yet liHle-‐studied part of the urban matrix with the poten=al to offer resources to fauna in plan=ngs at their edges.
Methods We inves=gated the effect of vegeta=on cover and dense understorey on bird diversity and abundance by conduc=ng three surveys in each of 28 sportsgrounds in the coastal city of Wollongong, NSW. Vegeta=on cover and understorey cover percentages were es=mated using a combina=on of Google Earth images and fieldwork. Bird counts were averaged and converted to a figure per hectare. Analysis was by General Linear Models.
