Given the influence of season on bird use patterns, I conducted
additional analyses of bird use at waster transfer stations during
winter and summer (June, July,
and August). In winter, the median number of birds using transfer
stations of various building design was 6–16.5 orders of magnitude
higher than the median number of total birds observed using
reference sites. Starling and gull use of waste transfer stations
during winter months followed a similar pattern. Overall,
bird use of ‘completely’ open transfer stations was higher than
bird use of ‘semi-enclosed’ and ‘fully enclosed’ waste transfer stations. During summer months, median total bird use of
waste transfer stations was 10–17 times higher than at grocery
stores . However,transfer station building
design did not influence total bird use during summer months.