Tag: Birds

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Bankouale Palm Tree

The Bankoualé Palm Livistona carinensis is a relict near endemic palm species classed as Vulnerable, only known to occur with tiny populations in Djibouti, Somalia and Yemen.

The Djibouti population is fewer than 400 adults in 12 sub-populations in its main distribution ranges at Goda Mountain. The adults are over mature, and juveniles and seedlings are only found in areas protected from grazing in areas where animals cannot eat them.

However, due to its restricted distribution in the country and the region, the species is facing a high risk of extinction in the wild in the medium-term future and based on the recent data collected on the palm.

It may be more appropriate to move the species status from the IUCN category of Vulnerable to Endangered.

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Djibouti Francolin

The Djibouti Francolin is a shy and elusive endemic gamebird classified as Critically Endangered species only known from two small important bird and biodiversity areas (Forêt du Day and Mabla) in Djibouti, which is severely fragmented and declining in both extent and quality, and within which the population is undergoing continuing decline. This means, if nothing is done, the species faces an extremely high risk of extinction in the immediate future (50% chance in ten years/three generations).

he critical issues of its survival appear to be the deterioration rate of its natural habitats, as evidenced by high mortality of the main woodland where it occurs. The reasons why its natural habitat is degenerating is not well understood but hypotheses have been suggested over the last decades.

These generally consist of a combination of factors such as: timber extraction for construction and firewood; over-grazing; and/or an apparent change in climate towards hotter and drier conditions which has affected the productivity of the entire ecosystem.

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Mabla Moutains

Mabla is the second largest area of relict montane forest and it was described as contiguous areas to Forêt du Day with junipers forest in Djibouti but today there are no longer alive juniper trees in the area and the dominant tree species are Acacia seyal, Buxus hildebrandtii with locally abundant Acacia etbaica and common Acacia mellifera.

The area is confirmed currently with the Goda massif “Forêt du Day” to support a viable population of the Critically Endangered Djibouti Francolin (Welch et al. 2009).

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Lake Abhé

The Lake Abhe is a salt lake situated in the embouchure of the Awash River forming a chain of six interconnected lakes positioned in the centre of the Afar Depression including Afambo, Bario, Gargori, Gummare and Laitali. Lake Abhé constitutes the largest permanent inland wetland ecosystem in Djibouti and is well-known for its landscapes with a plethora of thermal springs, only found the Djibouti side of the lake formed by “bizarre” chimneys lined up as human made structures “towering mineral deposits dating from the period when the was deeply flooded” which confer to this site an unconventional beauty rewarded to make more popular by the fiction movies “Planet of Apes” filmed entirely inside.

Furthermore, the lake is more renowned for its thousand and thousand of greater and lesser flamingos that flock to the site year around with at least 50 migrant species of water birds, White pelican and possibly cormorant may breed on the Ethiopian side. The site is relevant also other threatened wildlife such as spotted hyenas, Somali and Eritrean warthogs and Dorcas gazelles. It highly contributes the livelihoods of the nomadic Afar people who reside all surrounding arid areas in and over the border.

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Seven Brothers Islands

The Sept–Frères, is a group of six offshore volcanic islands next to the North-east coastal plain in the Bab el Mandeb straits, largely empty of vegetation, which together Ras Siyyan, forms the Sept Frères.

The islands support important breeding Seabird species such as white-eyed and sooty gulls, swift and lesser crested, white-checked, bridled terns and red-billed tropicbird. Osprey and sooty falcon also breed in the islands.

In addition and in certain weather conditions (wind directions), the islands play an important role in assisting migrating raptors complete their crossing of the Bab el Mandeb straits.

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Musha / Maskali Islands

Îles Musha / Maskali is Two ancient coral reef islands and several satellites islets, located at around 15 km in the North of Djibouti city in the Gulf of Tadjoura. The larger Island, Musha, supports an extensive stands of mangroves and sueada sp.

The islands and particularly its satellite islets is known as one of the breeding areas which used by red-billed tropicbird, white-eyed gull, bridled tern, Eurasian spoon bill, osprey, Goliath, striated and western reef herons, chestnut –bellied sandgrouse and possibly some mangrove warblers i.e. clamorous reed warbler.

The site is colonized by Indian House Crow and its presence has significant negative impacts on the breeding success of all species (Houssein Rayaleh, pers.com).

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Haramous / Loyada

Haramous/Loyada consists of two main wet habitats but for simplicity is designated as one site and part of it, was declared as the first and only Ramsar site of the country when Djibouti ratified Wetlands Convention in 2003. The site supports large inter-tidal mudflats with mangroves patches in several areas. The eastern coastal terrestrial part of the site is formed low sandy plain intersected by well vegetated wadis and covered with sparse acacia and shrubs.

The area supports large populations of passage and wintering shorebirds some of them are estimated as more than 1% of global population i.e. Crab Plover, Terek Sandpiper, Lesser and Greater Sandpipers as well as more than ten species of herons, Sacred ibis, Yellow-billed and Abdim’s Storks and Greater and Lesser Flamingos. In addition, individual of Arabian bustard and Arabian Golden Sparrow variable flocks, Greater or Lesser Hoopoe larks can be observed in the area (Houssein Rayaleh pers om).

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Galafi / Hanlé Plain

The Hanlé plain has similar biotope which constitutes large alluvial depression with extensive low mix acacia scrub, shallow wadis, and vast sand mats scattered low hills bordered by steep-sided mountains. In several small places, the area support permanent freshwater that hold large stands of doum palm Hyphaene such as Hyphaene and patches of marsh.

Hanlé including Galafi, Daoudaoua and Gagadé plains hold ostrich breeding small population and the freshwater areas support small numbers of breeding water birds such as spur-winged plover, three banded plover, black crake and Egyptian goose. And the area is known the only Djibouti record of long-tailed cormorant, malachite kingfisher and white-browed coucal (Welch and Welch 1998).

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Godorya / Doumeira

Godoria/Doumeira is consisting of a broad coastal plain lying between Djibouti/Eritrea border with the low hill offshore island of Doumeira to the north, and the hill of Ras Siyyan to the south with extension to Godoria mangroves. This is part of the Rift Valley/Red Sea flyway, the second most important flyway for migratory soaring birds in the world, and is the focus of a conservation initiative by Birdlife for migrating soaring birds (http://www.birdlife.org/migratorysoaringbirds/). Over 1.5 million soaring birds of 37 species (including 5 globally threatened species) use the straits each year to move between Eurasia and Africa.  The Strait is an important migration bottleneck because it is the shortest water crossing south of Suez, and the Djibouti side is an Important Bird Area (IBA), but has been little studied.  Information comes from surveys in autumn 1985 and 1987; and in spring 1990 and our own work in 2013 (http://egyptianvulturedjibouti.blogspot.co.at/). More than 240,000 raptors of 28 species were recorded crossing in a single autumn (Welch and Welch 1988), mostly common buzzard and steppe eagle, but also pallid harrier (NT), greater spotted eagle (VU), eastern imperial eagle (VU), and lesser kestrel (VU), and in spring large numbers of Egyptian vultures (EN) and booted eagles were counted during limited surveys (Welch and Welch 1991, McGrady et al 2013).

In addition to the raptors, the area is used storks, ibises, pelicans, bee-eaters, rollers, swifts, swallows, martins, passerines, and waders.

Furthermore, the site supports breeding populations of osprey and sooty falcon on the coastal cliffs and islands, Eurasian spoonbill, clamorous reed warbler in the mangroves and typical arid bird species on the coastal plain such as hoopoe lark, black crowned sparrow lark and desert wheatear. It supports too for seabirds such as slender-billed gull and significant populations of crab plover (5600+, in 1987, Welch and Welch, 1988).

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Goda Moutains / Day Forest

The Association Djibouti Nature – Djibouti Nature  is an independent, membership-based and not-for-profit grassroots organization, legally established in Djibouti. Djibouti Nature was set up in 1999 and thus the most and oldest experienced civil society organization working on nature conservation in the country.

It has an important but short history of nature conservation mainly from birds’ species and natural habitats perspective. Besides, it has been working tirelessly with local communities, private sectors and government bodies for many years to raise awareness for both Djibouti’s extraordinary wildlife and precious habitats protection for the benefit of present and future generations.

Djibouti Nature is registered under the provisions of Act of July 1st, 1901, relating to the contract of association in Djibouti and certificate has been delivered (certificate number 63/DAGR/18/03/2001) by the Ministry of Interior and Decentralisation. The other pages of our site will give you more details.

Last but not least, our website is having one more major upgrade. To allow access to our site to a wider audience, we have provided multilingual functions.

Unfortunately, because of our limited human and financial resources, we started with the following languages: English, French and Somali. In most cases, we translated the content using Google Translate. It usually gives a pretty clear idea. However, this is not enough. So we are working to do better.

Therefore, to translate our content into other national languages (Afar and Arabic) or to improve existing translations, we are looking for volunteers! If you want to contribute in anyway, please contact us.

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