Bird monitoring in six agriculturally dominated landscapes of Saxony-Anhalt (Germany) in 2009

Bird communities in agriculturally dominated landscapes in Saxony-Anhalt (Germany) were monitored according to the point count method (see Bibby, C.J. (2000) Bird census techniques. Academic Press, London). A central core area of 3 × 3 km within each sample site was divided into five square cells of 1 km**2 each according to a checkerboard grid. Within each of these 5 cells, 4 observation points were selected and at each point all singing, calling and seen bird species were registered within a radius of 250 m for 5 minutes. Surveys started around sunrise and ended about three hours later. A bird survey within one year was performed with three visits in the following periods: (1) 1-30 April, (2) 1-20 May, (3) 21 May-20 June. Based on the birds recorded in the field, the observed bird numbers at each point were translated into territory numbers per species as an expert guess.