Current view: Text account
Site description (2001 baseline):
Site location and context
The site lies about 13 km west of the small town of Boulehilet, north-east of Batna on the plateau between the coastal Petite Kabylie range of mountains to the north and the Massif de l’Aurès to the south. It is c.15 km south of Sebkhet Ez-Zemoul (site DZ012). The site consists of a shallow muddy basin and is defined by Morgan (1982) as a vegetated sebkhet, with unusually high salinity for this kind of wetland: it is dry for at least two months of the year. Vegetation includes a wide (up to 100 m) fringe of
Salicornia sp. covering almost all the shoreline, some areas of
Juncus sp. above the
Salicornia fringe and scattered
Ruppia sp. Non-intensive arable farmland, market gardens and low hills surround it to the north. There is extensive cattle- and sheep-grazing in the surrounding hills and some hunting on the site.
See Box for key species. The site is important for large numbers of wintering ducks and waders, with estimates of total numbers of ducks in winter 1991/92 exceeding 10,000 and 14,000–15,000. More than 20,000 total waterbirds have been recorded at the site (20,402 in 1992). More than 3,000
Phoenicopterus ruber were recorded in 1998 (see Box). In addition to
Anas clypeata, the principal ducks are
Tadorna tadorna (3,000),
A. penelope (5,500),
A. crecca (over 3,000),
A. platyrhynchos (3,500) and
A. acuta (3,000). Other species wintering in significant numbers include 4,000
Fulica atra, 300
Grus grus, 780
Recurvirostra avosetta and hundreds of small waders, especially
Charadrius alexandrinus (see Box) and
Calidris minuta.
Non-bird biodiversity: None known to BirdLife International.
Pressure/threats to key biodiversity
No information.
Recommended citation
BirdLife International (2024) Important Bird Area factsheet: Sebkhet Djendli (Algeria). Downloaded from
https://datazone.birdlife.org/site/factsheet/sebkhet-djendli-iba-algeria on 23/11/2024.
