This work was conducted in the campus of the Universidade Federal de Lavras (UFLA), at 21º13'40" S and 44º57'50" WG. The authors marked a track of about 300 m long within four forest fragments found in the campus and, between April and November of 1995, visited these tracks recording the number of species and individuals of as well as ecological patterns of each species, such as feeding habits and position occupied in the vegetation stratum. From the data obtained, the following abundance parameters were calculated: avifauna similarity among the sites and the index of diversity. A total of 107 bird species were recorded in the forest fragments. It was noted an absence of several families of more specialized forest birds, such as Tinamidae, Contingidae and Trogonidae and of species of the families Dendrocolaptidae, Formicariidae, Pipridae and Picidae when compared to a tract of semideciduous montane forest of the Poço Bonito Forest Reserve, representing a loss of about 48% of forest birds species, probably due to their very reduced sizes. This work demonstrates the inefficiency of very small forest fragments in maintaining certain more especialized forest bird species and the need of preserving larger fragments that are still left for conservation in the region.
birds; fragmentation; species loss
