Wildfires impact animal populations directly, and indirectly through alteration of forest habitats. Recovery of populations and habitat structure occurs over time since fire, but knowledge is lacking about the relative importance of these processes as drivers of the occurrence of birds in fire-prone forests. We aimed to determine the extent to which canopy cover mediates the effects of a decadal increase in time since fire on the richness and occurrence of canopy bird species. We established sites at either short (5 years) or mid-range (16 years) time since fire in montane dry sclerophyll forests of south-eastern Australia. Canopy cover estimates were derived from airborne LiDAR data. Birds were surveyed using acoustic recorders, with the resulting data analyzed using Bayesian mediation models to partition direct (population processes) and indirect (canopy cover) effects of time since fire on canopy birds. The predictive accuracy of models representing partial mediation (direct and ind