Abstract
From November 1995 to early April 1996, 376 individuals were banded in an extensive forest and two isolated woodlots in the Sayama Hills, Central Japan. Each captured individual was fitted with a numbered metal ring and celluloid colored ring. A large number of individuals (15 or more) were banded for Japanese Pygmy Woodpecker Dendrocopos kizuki, Brown-eared Bulbul Hypsipetes amaurotis, Red-flanked Bluetail Tarsiger cyanurus, Pale Thrush Turdus pallidus, Japanese Bush Warbler Cettia diphone, Varied Tit Parus varius, Great Tit Parus major, Japanese White-eye Zosterops japonicus and Black-faced Bunting Emberiza spodocephala. Pale Thrush, Varied Tit and Japanese White-eye were captured more frequently in the extensive forest than in the isolated woodlots, while Great Tit and Black-faced Bunting were captured more frequently in the woodlots. The number of the captured individuals took the maximum in January, perhaps because fruits of Eurya japonica, a typical shrub species favored by most birds in the study area, were a vailable during this month.
Several movements of Varied Tit and Long-tailed Tit Aegithalos caudatus within the study area were observed. A Long-tailed Tit moved from one of the isolated woodlots to the other (a distance of about 100 m).
Sixty of the 376 banded individuals were recaptured at the same banding site. Recapture ratios of Japanese Bush Warbler, Pale Thrush and Red-flanked Bluetail, which frequent the shrub layer, were very high. On the other hand, although a large number of Great Tit and Japanese White-eye were banded, recapture ratios for these two species were lower. These results suggest that during the wintering season, the former three species tend to settle in a restricted area, while the later two species tend to move about over a wide range of forest habitat.
