The data are gathered within the TERENO (Terrestrial Environmental Observatories) long-term research programme involving several Helmholtz Association Centers in Germany (www.tereno.net). TERENO aims to catalogue the long-term ecological, social and economic impact of global change at regional and landscape level. The biodiversity part of TERENO deals with monitoring and research on different organism groups: (1) Vascular plants (primary producers, overall biodiversity indicators), (2) Bees & Hoverflies (important pollinators; ecosystem service agents), (3) Butterflies (indicators for habitat quality, pollinators), (4) Birds (highly mobile, sensitive to landscape context, integrative at landscape scale). This dataset covers bird count data of 4x4 km landscapes in Saxony-Anhalt (Germany) dominated by agricultural use. All singing, calling and seen birds were registered according to the point counts method described by Bibby et al. (1992: Bird census techniques, Academic press, London).