• Korean Journal of Environment and Ecology
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• v.28 no.4
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• pp.411-418
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• 2014

This study seeks to identify the effects of light pollution and environmental factors on Great Tits(Parus major) bird's chirping at dawn. For this research, the campus of Sanji University, Wonju, South Korea was selected as the area with light pollution and the western forest of the Chiaksan National Park was chosen as the natural area herein. The Recording period was between March 26th and May 30th, 2014. As a result of analyzing the chirping time according to light pollution, it was found that the light pollution area clearly showed earlier chirping time than the natural area (p<0.05). Great Tits(P. major) normally start their first chirping before sunrise and in most of the days under investigation of this research, those in Sanji University started to chirp earlier. This faster chirping time seems to improve the chance for the female birds to mate with immature males thus, baby birds hatch earlier than the appropriate breeding season and results in the lack of feed resources. The correlation between Great Tits'(P. major) dawn chirping and environmental factors were investigated herein including the time of sunrise, civil twilight, navigation twilight, astronomical twilight, average temperature, highest temperature, lowest temperature, time of moonrise and cloudiness. The first chirping time of wild birds in the day was found to have correlations with all of the environmental factors excluding the time of moonrise and cloudiness. Great Tits(P. major) started their first chirping before sunrise when the day started to break around civil twilight. Along with the earlier sunrise and higher air temperature, their dawn chirping time was also quickened. The time of moonrise and cloudiness did not show a correlation and further follow-up studies will be necessary in this regard.