Bird-Habitat Associations in the Eastern Highlands of Scotland

Seventy-one 1-km 2 squares of unenclosed upland, located in the Grampian, Tayside and Central regions of Scotland, were surveyed for 29 species of upland breeding birds, vegetation and other habitat attributes between 13 April and 28 June 1989. Each site was described in terms of its location (easting and northing), the percentage of its area within six topography classes (measures of altitude and slope) and the percentage cover of eight habitat patch types (incorporating both the plant species and structural features within the patch). Classification and ordination methods suggested that the distributions of the bird species could not be considered as a number of discrete groups at the level of the sampling unit