Avian distribution patterns in North Humberside woodlands: The role of habitat and landscape-scale factors revisited

Avian distribution patterns in small woodlands in an agricultural landscape were investigated simultaneously at two spatial scales using nested sampling. Correlation, regression and multivariate statistics were used to examine factors influencing bird species' distribution patterns. At the landscape scale, woodland area and isolation were identified as the most important factors influencing birds whilst at the habitat scale vegetation structure was found to be important. Whilst these results demonstrated that the effects of habitat and landscape structure were largely intuitive, there were demonstrable effects of landscape and habitat structure at the 'wrong' scale. Implications for detecting effects of scale on woodland bird species were considered.