Search

The city of Madrid has a large number of parks that conform a complex mosaic, providing a suitable space for the maintenance of an assemblage of birds. The objective of this work was to quantify the abundance and richness of birds in different parks of Madrid, as well as to determine the effect of size on these, as well as to measure the proportions of the food guilds in each one. Visual and auditive censuses were conducted in six parks located in the city of Madrid, between the months of July and August of 2014 and 2015. A total of 10,851 sightings were made, belonging to 54 species. The most abundant species were the Common Sparrow, Passer domesticus, the Rock Dove, Columba livia, the Moon Parakeet, Myiopsitta monachus, the Common Blackbird Turdus merula, and the Magpie, Pica pica. The richest families were Sylviidae and Corvidae. There is a positive correlation between richness and abundance and the size of each park. Differences were found between abundances per location during each year. The predominant food guilds in abundance were omnivores and insectivores. A high correlation was found between the size of the park and the presence of omnivores, and a little lower in insectivores. In all the parks there was a predominance of omnivores. The park where insectivores presented a higher proportion was Casa de Campo. Omnivores were abundant in Fuente del Berro and Parque del Oeste. In terms of abundance, the park with the largest number of individuals was El Retiro followed by Casa de Campo; while those with the greatest richness were Casa de Campo and El Capricho. The results of this work indicate that there is a difference between the abundance and richness of the parks, as well as in the predominant feeding guilds, and these differences are highly correlated with the patch size. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]