A major challenge in studies of habitat fragmentation is to determine the influence of patch quality and landscape context on patch use by animals. Few studies have simultaneously examined effects of patch (area, shape, and vegetation structure) and landscape (e.g., amount of arboreal vegetation in close proximity) on abundance patterns of animals. In this study, we examined how these characteristics influence bird species distribution and abundance in a pasture-dominated landscape in the Los Tuxtlas region of Veracruz, Mexico. We focused on three types of landscape elements: forest edge sites (n = 8), forest remnants (n = 8), and riparian forest remnants (n = 9). We quantified habitat use and community composition of birds by conducting seven counts of birds in each site between October 1996 and April 1997. Species typically restricted to forest were influenced by two patch-level factors, whereas species not so restricted were influenced by both patch- and landscape-level factors. At a community level, b...