eBird data for: Avian behaviour changes in response to human activity during the COVID-19 lockdown in the United Kingdom

Human activities may impact animal habitat and resource use, potentially influencing contemporary evolution in animals. In the United Kingdom (UK), COVID-19 lockdown restrictions resulted in sudden, drastic alterations to human activity. We hypothesized that short-term daily and long-term seasonal changes in human mobility might result in changes in bird habitat use, depending on the mobility type (home, parks, grocery) and the extent of change. Using Google human mobility data and 872 850 bird observations, we determined that during lockdown, human mobility changes resulted in altered habitat use in 80% (20/25) of our focal bird species. When humans spent more time at home, over half of affected species had lower counts, perhaps resulting from the disturbance of birds in garden habitats. Bird counts of some species (e.g. rooks, gulls) increased over the short-term as humans spent more time parks, possibly due to human-sourced food resources (e.g. picnic refuse), while counts of other s...