Human disturbance causes the continual loss of natural habitats, and can result in fragmented habitats consisting only of patchy remnants. This habitat modification can lead to changes in plant-animal interactions. Understanding how the movement behavior of animal dispersers affects the regeneration patterns of plant species in patchy environments has been one of the main objectives of ecologists in recent years. Many previous studies have investigated seed dispersal only in terms of the dispersal distance. However, from the perspective of successful plant growth, it is not only important how far seeds are dispersed, but also where they are finally deposited. The quality of seed dispersal crucially depends on the movement patterns of the dispersing animal vectors; however, few ecological studies have focused on how the patchiness of habitats affects the movement patterns of specialist and generalist bird species, and thus, how habitat patchiness affects plant recruitment. Chinese yew (Taxus chinensis var. mairei) is listed as a Category 1 protected species in China, and it has also been listed as a globally endangered species in the IUCN Red List. A large proportion of the wild population of Chinese yew is distributed in patchy environments, and relies on bird vectors for seed dispersal. Previous studies have shown that Chinese yew seedlings can successfully establish away from mature trees as a result of seed dispersal by birds in the Corvidae and Pycnonotidae. However, it is still unknown how habitat patchiness affects the movement patterns of specialist and generalist bird species, and thus, how it affects the regeneration of Chinese yew and the persistence of its populations. In this study, we studied bird dispersal of Chinese yew seeds in the yew ecological garden of Meihuashan National Reserve. We studied the foraging and dispersing behavior of frugivorous birds in this typical patchy environment, and compared the contributions of a specialist (Hypsipetes leucocephalus) and generalist (Urocissa erythrorhyncha) species to seed dispersal by analyzing their post-foraging movement behaviors. The results showed that the Chinese yew source patch attracted 22 species of frugivorous birds to feed on seeds. A mutualistic seed dispersal relationship was formed between 13 bird species and Chinese yew. The main disperser of Chinese yew seeds was H. leucocephalus. There were annual differences in the other disperser species. The effectiveness of seed dispersal differed between the specialist and generalist bird species. After foraging for Chinese yew seeds, the movement and habitat selection differed between the habitat generalist (U. erythrorhyncha) and habitat specialist (H. leucocephalus) bird species. This may explain the differences in the seed dispersal distance and seed deposition sites between these two species. The habitat specialist bird species dispersed seeds over a short distance (16.3±11.0 m, mean±SD; n = 125) and the seeds were randomly distributed in a bamboo recruitment patch. The generalist species always moved between habitat patches and removed the seeds to the recruitment patch, dispersing seeds over a longer distance (24.9±20.0 m, mean±SD; n= 95). There was a high concordance between the movement distance of the specialist species and the seedling recruitment distance (χ²= 5.844, P = 0.211), and also a high spatial concordance between the habitat of the generalist species and the seedling recruitment habitat (χ²= 4.582, P = 0.205). Our results highlight that seed dispersal mutualistic relationships can form between Chinese yew and both specialist and generalist bird species. The effectiveness of Chinese yew dispersal was affected not only by the dispersal distances of specialist and generalist bird species, but also by the habitat in which the seeds were deposited.