Habitat relationships in passeriform birds in eastern New Brunswick

Abstract

This study examined two aspects of breeding habitat selection in several species of migratory passeriform birds: (1) Quantitative bird-vegetational relationships and (2) philopatry of individuals to the breeding location. -- In an attempt to discover vegetational characteristics to which species were responding, 19 variables of vegetational structure were measured and subjected to a principal components analysis which extracted seven major vegetational trends from the raw data. Stepwise multiple regressions of bird abundance at each of 19 study sites on the vegetational components demonstrated that significant proportions of the variation in abundance of 11 species out of 22 were accounted for by certain vegetational variables. An investigation of philopatry revealed that individuals of most species often returned to or near the breeding location of a previous year. For three species, a comparison of site fidelity in experienced birds and first-year adults using between season data showed that experienced birds tended to move shorter distances from a previous year's location than did first-years.