The bird communities of four Brachystegia and two Acacia woodlands near Lusaka, Republic of Zambia, were quantitatively assessed in the rainy season (February 1976). The number of species and the species diversity values were rather similar in all areas, and so was also the total bird density (with one exception) in spite of a sevenfold difference of foliage quantity between the poorest and richest habitats investigated. Foliage-gleaning birds exploited foliage-richer habitats less intensively than foliage-poorer ones. The density of Palaearctic migrants, among which Phylloscopus trochilus and Musicapa striata were most abundant, was low throughout; in fact practically none was recorded in relatively untouched habitats, but in much disturbed areas, for example, thinned-out Brachystegia or heavily grazed Acacia woodlands, they were locally more numerous. Everywhere they made up only a minor portion of all birds present, and this holds also if their density is related to the guild of ecologically corresponding African species; for example, the density of Ph. trochilus in comparison with that of the whole guild of foliage-gleaning passerines.