Biodiversity and conservation are among the most important problems of the present day, attracting the attention not only of professional biologists but also amateurs interested in wild life and even the man in the street. Birds are very sensitive to disturbance of their ecosystems, making them a group which can be used to estimate current conditions of biodiversity and how they are changing, and to predict further change. Including erratics, about 400 species of birds of 19 orders have been recorded in Ukraine. Status and numbers vary greatly from order to order and between regions of the country. The most dramatic habitats change has occurred in the steppe and forest-steppe zones. Bird diversity here has decreased considerably, and many species are included into the "Red Book of Ukraine". Wetlands are particularly valuable for bird protection: they occupy large areas of the lower parts of some big rivers, particularly the Dnieper, Dniester and Danube, and significant sites are also found in the Carpathians, the forests of Polissia, and in bogs in the forest and forest-steppe zones. Wetlands next to the Black Sea are of international importance. Some of these are included in Ukraine's list of protected areas (Klestov, 1996). Rare and specialized species linked to the most vulnerable habitats need special attention. The second edition of the "Red Book of Ukraine" (1995) contains 67 birds species of 9 orders: Falconiformes (20), Charadriiformes (12), Anseriformes(8), Passeriformes (8), Strigiformes (6), Pelicaniformes (4), Ciconiformes (4), Gruiformes (4), and Galliformes (1). All are recorded from Ukrainian reserves, with 57 known from the Black-Sea Biosphere Reserve (Ardamatskaya & Semenov, 1977; Ardamatskaya, 1981; Ardamatskaya, 1991; Ardamatskaya & Rudenko, 1996), and 35-40 species from other protected areas. In Dnipropetrovsk Oblast 40 birds species listed in the "Red Book of Ukraine" have been recorded (Bulakhov et al., 1996). The corncrake is one of the specially protected species (Klestov, 1996), and is included in European Red List. Protection of habitats, creation of new reserves, and public education programmes are crucial for conservation of bird diversity.