Abstract. Winarni NL, Anugra BG, Anisafitri S, Kaunain NN, Pradana DH. 2021. Fieldwork during pandemic: Backyard bird survey and making student’s biological field practice works. Biodiversitas 22: 1887-1894. The COVID-19 pandemic situations had forced universities to shutdown face-to-face lectures and change it to online teaching. This change had brought significant challenges to biological courses which need field practice in their syllabus and therefore field practice should be adjusted and innovative. During November-December 2020, we compared students' field practice from the Ornithology class to urban bird survey to evaluate whether the data collected by students can contribute to citizen science as well as to enhance field practice during online courses. We used point count methods to survey bird communities in urban environment in Jakarta and its satellite cities. We found that the students tended to observe the most abundant birds such as the cave swiftlet and Eurasian tree sparrow and missed unfamiliar species which were smaller-sized birds that use aerial and upper canopy. It was suggested that the data from field practice can also support citizen science when prioritized to common, abundance species. In addition, best practices for field practice were provided, emphasizing the independent field practice incorporating technology in which the results were communicated to the students. Hence, strengthening field practice for biological courses is important to support biodiversity conservation research and activities.

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Grey-backed myna (Acridotheres tricolor) is a critically endangered endemic bird of East Java with populations in nature fewer than 250 individuals. Baluran National Park is one of the last natural habitats of Grey-backed myna. This study aims to determine the relative abundance and habitat use of Grey-backed myna populations in several habitats in Baluran National Park. The relative abundance of bird populations was calculated using the encounter rates formula, while habitat use was analyzed using PCA. The study was conducted from October to November 2018 in savanna, forest-savanna, restoration-savanna, monsoon forest, acacia forest, and coastal forest. The results showed that the savanna habitat had the highest encounter rates of 11.16, while the beach forest habitat is the habitat with the lowest encounter rates of 0. PCA analysis shows the habitat use of Greybacked myna tends to be determined based on the presence of Brachiaria reptans, Acacia nilotica, Corypha utan, dead tree trunks, and abundant trees with large diameter, also the few of Tamarindus indica and leaf litter. An understanding of the relative abundance and habitat use is important for the grey-backed myna conservation.

The bird community in urban areas indicates the species-specific adaptability to urban conditions such as the increase in man-made habitats. Urban adapters and urban exploiters, two groups that make up most of the urban birds, were assessed to determine their suitable habitat and explain their distribution, as well as to determine the environmental predictors for the two bird groups assemblages in Depok, one of Jakarta’s satellite cities. We used the point-count method to survey the birds in three habitat types, green spaces, residentials, and roadside, and then we used Maximum Entropy (MaxEnt) to analyze the species distribution modeling. We also the predicted habitat distributions for the urban adapters and urban exploiters based on several environmental predictors. Our results suggest that both urban adapters and urban exploiters were abundant in residential areas. Eurasian tree sparrows (Passer montanus) and cave swiflets (Collocalia linchi) were the most common species in all three habitat types. On average, canopy cover was most extensive in green spaces followed by residential and roadside areas. Urban exploiters were likely to have a high suitability extent compared to urban adapters. The distributions of both groups were affected by the distance to perennial water, then by land function for the urban adapters, and distance to patches for the urban exploiters. The presence of urban adapters and urban exploiters in residential areas suggests that home gardens supported critical habitats when green spaces were unavailable.

Mangrove ecosystems are vulnerable to pollution such as marine debris. The presence of marine debris can affect the waterbird community. The present study aims to determine and analyze the effect of marine debris on waterbirds in the Muara Angke Mangrove Area. The research was undertaken from October to November 2020 at three research areas: Angke-Kapuk Protection Forest, Angke-Kapuk Nature Tourism Park, and Muara Angke Arboretum. Observations of waterbirds were carried out using the point count method and observations of marine debris density were conducted with the shoreline survey method developed by NOAA. To find out the pattern of marine debris distribution and its effect on waterbirds, we implemented Principal Component Analysis (PCA) and Spearman Correlation. In total, there were 13 species of waterbirds from 7 different orders in the three research areas. PCA analysis showed 6 variables in PC1 namely herbivorous duck, tactical surface, visual surface, habitat generalist, moderate specialist, and large. Further, PC2 produces 6 variables, namely pursuit diving, stalking, habitat generalist, aquatic generalist, and large. The results of the Spearman correlation indicated that three bird species were significantly negatively correlated with trash, those species are Anhinga melanogaster, Egretta garzetta, and Mycteria cinerea.