Abstract
The influence of the vegetation and surrounding land use on the bird distribution in the wintering season was analyzed in order to develop a method of ecological network planning in urban area. The bird distributions were surveyed by line transects method with mapping observed points from December 2002 to February 2003 in the west part of Nishinomiya City, Hyogo Prefecture, Central Japan. The relationship between species and surrounding land uses of observed points was analyzed by Geographic Information Systems (GIS). The result showed it is necessary for the appearance of forest species that forest is the most dominant land use (over 50 %) in the surrounding area. Shrub and herb layers are also impotant for the appearence of some species.