Geographic associations of breeding bird distribution in an urban open space

The Puente-Chino Hills, extending west into the highly urbanized Los Angeles Basin, represent one of the largest expanses of lowland habitats in the region. During spring and early summer of 1997 and 1998, birds and vegetation surveys were conducted to clarify the influence of geographical position in the distribution of birds in the hills. Using logistic regression, the inclusion of longitudinal position as a variable is shown to make a statistically significant contribution to bird species presence beyond that of habitat alone for 12 of the 49 most commonly detected species. Species more common than would be expected based on habitat in the east were typical of grassland and open habitats, whereas those more common in the west were characteristic of tall scrub or urban habitats. Thus, species’ distributions in the hills are likely influenced by landscape-scale vegetation patterns and by the aggregate amount of urbanized areas in the west. This emphasizes the importance of using geographical position as a variable when analyzing patterns in bird distribution and siting conservation areas.