Early Fall Urban Bird Communities of Hobart, Tasmania.

Abstract

Urban bird communities of the city of Hobart, Australia, were surveyed in the early fall of 1988. Twenty-nine species of birds were observed at nine sites around the city center and its vicinity. Sites ranged from central urban areas where vegetation was virtually absent to eucalypt woodland almost completely dominated by native vegetation. Bird species were classified into 9 types (A-I) according to their preference for certain habitat types. These types were further grouped into "towners", "suburbia", and "woodlanders". The town communities were dominated by 4 introduced species. But introduced species were rare or absent in the woodland communities. In the town communities there were linear correlations between certain bird community attributes (bird density, number of species, and index of diversity) and habitat factors (percentage covers of tree, subtree, shrub and grass layers, total foliage vegetation cover rate, bare ground rate, builing cover rate and number of buildings), but the woodland communities differed significantly from these correlations. This contrast may result from either a lack of native vegetation in the older developed areas of Hobart City, or the occupation of natives species' niches by introduced bird species.