Urban community gardens foster positive human-avian interactions across an income gradient in San Francisco

Access to nature in cities is critical to human well-being; however, it is not equitably distributed. In this study, we investigated a specific type of access to nature, access to positive interactions with urban birds. We explored whether these interactions are equitably distributed in 20 community gardens across an income gradient in the city of San Francisco, U.S.A. We used an interdisciplinary approach, combining ecological and social methods. To assess bird abundance and diversity, we conducted point counts. To understand gardener’s attitudes towards birds, we conducted online and in-person quantitative surveys. We found that gardeners had highly positive attitudes towards individual species and towards birds overall, despite slightly more negative attitudes towards two corvid species. Gardeners associated different ecological and aesthetic services and disservices with different species. Our models showed no significant relationship between our metrics of access and garden income. Instead, bird abundance and diversity was correlated with local and landscape environmental variables, only some of which were related to income. Our results suggest that the luxury effect does not exist for birds during the breeding season in community gardens in San Francisco. Investment in maintaining and growing community gardens could present a mutually beneficial solution for biodiversity and equitable nature access in the city.