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).