We resurveyed six fragments of scrub vegetation near San Diego for eight scrub-specialist bird species sampled in two previous studies (Soulé et al. 1988 and Crooks et al. 2001) to determine if species’ distributions are changing over time and whether previously reported patterns of occurrence are persisting. We found that these habitat fragments tended to lose resident populations of scrub-specialist birds over the last 20 years, that the number of species detected was positively related to area, that extirpations were negatively related to area, and that local recolonizations were negatively related to the isolation of the fragment. In addition, sensitivity to fragmentation seems to be related in part to differences in body size and dispersal capability.