http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2018/10/churches-poland-are-providing-sanctuary-birds

Most churches are focused on heaven, but in Poland, they seem to be providing a more earthly benefit: sanctuary for dozens of species of birds.

That’s what biologists found when they surveyed the properties of 101 churches and an equal number of farmsteads in villages in southern Poland. Previous research had found that farms in Eastern Europe support large numbers of different kinds of birds, providing important sanctuaries for the species in areas where their more natural habitat was lost. But the new study, which examined the features of in-use churches and farms, as well as their surrounding grounds, shows churches had 1.6 times more species on average than farms, and about twice as many birds overall, the researchers report this month in Biological Conservation.