Protected Areas (PAs) play a crucial role in safeguarding and promoting ecological balance of bird diversity. This study presents a comparative analysis of bird diversity, richness, and evenness in three protected areas, i.e., Lake Manyara National Park (LMNP), Lake Natron Game Controlled Area (LNGCA) and Mtowambu Game Controlled Area (MGCA) in wet and dry seasons. A standardized bird point count method was used to collect data on species composition, abundances and distribution in each Protected Area during wet (January) and dry (June) seasons 2021. The results revealed a different trend of bird diversity across the three PAs contrary to our expectations. It was expected to have high diversity of bird species in LMNP, only to find that during wet season, LNGCA displayed high diversity of bird species (H' = 4.859, n = 233) followed by MGCA (H' = 4.253, n = 137) and lastly was LMNP (H' =3.695, n = 125), where else in dry season MGCA was observed to have high diversity of bird species (H' = 4.353) followed by LMNP and LNGCA (H' = 4.145), (H' = 3.541) respectively. Family phoenicopteridae showed the highest number of individual birds in wet season and family ploceidae in dry season. The study findings recommended that aviatuorism is one of the other forms of tourism that should be promoted. However, areas with lower protection status such as MGCA and LNGCA, should receive additional conservation attention and stricter regulation.

Keywords: aviatuorism, bird point count, ecological balance and protection status