Bird communities of cities, towns and villages are usually neglected by ornithologists as "unnatural". These communities are, however, arguably characterized by high internal diversity and the presence of groups of species, clearly and stably connected with each other and with the environment. During the last two decades, the author recorded 282 bird species in cities, towns and villages of central Ukraine. Adding published records to this list, 316 species of birds have been recorded in this area, 312 of them in Kiev alone. Among these, about 100 species are almost always found in all areas of human population. Their numbers depend on the proportions of different available habitats (the most important being wetlands) rather than the size of the human settlement. Of the other species, about 200 are transit migrants and rare visitors hardly, if at all, ecologically connected with urban and rural habitats. Some wetlands and big parks within urban and rural areas have a high bird diversity and need protection. Current trends in the dynamics of urban and rural bird populations allow one to predict an increase of hooded crows (Corvus corone cornix), ravens (Corvus corax), jays (Garrulus glandularis), goshawks (Accipiter gentilis) and black redstarts (Phoenicurus ochruros) in urban habitats. Numbers of black kites (Milvus migrans), crested larks (Galerida cristata), house martins (Delichon urbica) and thrush-nightingales (Luscinia luscinia) will, however, decrease, as will numbers of some ground-nesting species which prefer tree habitats.