Areia Branca no Dolok Oan is a

Important Bird Area An Important Bird and Biodiversity Area (IBA) is an area identified using an internationally agreed set of criteria as being globally important for the conservation of bird populations. IBA was developed and sites are identified by BirdLife Int ...

(IBA) in

Timor-Leste Timor-Leste, also known as East Timor, officially the Democratic Republic of Timor-Leste, is a country in Southeast Asia. It comprises the eastern half of the island of Timor, the coastal exclave of Oecusse in the island's northwest, and ...

, a country occupying the eastern end of the island of

Timor Timor (, , ) is an island at the southern end of Maritime Southeast Asia, in the north of the Timor Sea. The island is Indonesia–Timor-Leste border, divided between the sovereign states of Timor-Leste in the eastern part and Indonesia in the ...

at the eastern end of the

Lesser Sunda Islands The Lesser Sunda Islands (, , ), now known as Nusa Tenggara Islands (, or "Southeast Islands"), are an archipelago in the Indonesian archipelago. Most of the Lesser Sunda Islands are located within the Wallacea region, except for the Bali pro ...

group of

Wallacea Wallacea is a biogeography, biogeographical designation for a group of mainly list of islands of Indonesia, Indonesian islands separated by deep-water straits from the Asian and Australia (continent), Australian continental shelf, continental ...

Description

The IBA lies just east of the capital,

Dili Dili (Portuguese language, Portuguese and Tetum language, Tetum: ''Díli'') is the Capital city, capital and largest city of Timor-Leste. It lies on the northern coast of the island of Timor, in a small area of flat land hemmed in by mountai ...

, on the north coast of the island. It encompasses a marine embayment containing beds of sea-grass,

mangrove A mangrove is a shrub or tree that grows mainly in coastal saline water, saline or brackish water. Mangroves grow in an equatorial climate, typically along coastlines and tidal rivers. They have particular adaptations to take in extra oxygen a ...

mudflat Mudflats or mud flats, also known as tidal flats or, in Ireland, slob or slobs, are coastal wetlands that form in intertidal areas where sediments have been deposited by tides or rivers. A global analysis published in 2019 suggested that tidal ...

s, rock platforms and

beach A beach is a landform alongside a body of water which consists of loose particles. The particles composing a beach are typically made from Rock (geology), rock, such as sand, gravel, shingle beach, shingle, pebbles, etc., or biological s ...

es. The coastal wetland habitats are backed by hills and ridges vegetated with

savanna A savanna or savannah is a mixed woodland-grassland (i.e. grassy woodland) biome and ecosystem characterised by the trees being sufficiently widely spaced so that the canopy does not close. The open canopy allows sufficient light to reach th ...

woodland A woodland () is, in the broad sense, land covered with woody plants (trees and shrubs), or in a narrow sense, synonymous with wood (or in the U.S., the '' plurale tantum'' woods), a low-density forest forming open habitats with plenty of sunli ...

dominated by ''

Eucalyptus alba ''Eucalyptus alba'', commonly known as white gum, khaki gum or poplar gum, is a species of tree that is native to Australia, Timor, and New Guinea. It has smooth bark, lance-shaped to egg-shaped leaves, flower buds in groups of seven, white flowe ...

'', with patches of

tropical dry forest The tropical and subtropical dry broadleaf forest is a habitat type defined by the World Wide Fund for Nature and is located at tropical and subtropical latitudes. Though these forests occur in climates that are warm year-round, and may receive ...

Birds

The site has been identified by

BirdLife International BirdLife International is a global partnership of non-governmental organizations that strives to conserve birds and their habitats. BirdLife International's priorities include preventing extinction of bird species, identifying and safeguarding i ...

as an IBA because it supports visiting, though non-breeding,

critically endangered An IUCN Red List critically endangered (CR or sometimes CE) species is one that has been categorized by the International Union for Conservation of Nature as facing an extremely high risk of extinction in the wild. As of December 2023, of t ...

Christmas Island frigatebird The Christmas frigatebird (''Fregata andrewsi''), or Christmas Island frigatebird, is a seabird of the frigatebird family Fregatidae which is an endemic breeder to Christmas Island in the Indian Ocean. Apart from the Ascension frigatebird, the th ...

s, as well as populations of

pink-headed imperial pigeon The pink-headed imperial pigeon (''Ducula rosacea'') is a species of bird in the family Columbidae found in the Lesser Sunda Islands of Indonesia. Its natural habitats are subtropical or tropical moist lowland forests, subtropical or tropical man ...

s, streak-breasted honeyeaters,

Timor friarbird The Timor friarbird or plain friarbird (''Philemon inornatus'') is a species of bird in the family Meliphagidae. Habitat It is found on Timor island, where it plays an important cultural role. Its natural habitat is subtropical or tropical dry ...

s, plain gerygones,

fawn-breasted whistler The fawn-breasted whistler (''Pachycephala orpheus'') is a species of bird in the family Pachycephalidae. It is found on the islands of Timor and Wetar. Its natural habitats are subtropical or tropical moist lowland forests and subtropical or tro ...

olive-brown oriole Olive-brown oriole has been split into the following species: * Timor oriole The Timor oriole (''Oriolus melanotis'') is a species of bird in the family Oriolidae. It is endemic to the Lesser Sundas, where it is found on Timor, Rote and Semau ...

s, blue-cheeked flowerpeckers, flame-breasted sunbirds and

Timor sparrow The Timor sparrow (''Padda fuscata''), also known as Timor dusky sparrow, is a small passerine bird. The bird inhabits the grasslands and lowlands of the Timor archipelago with its distribution typically sparse. Its diet consists mainly of rice a ...

References

Important Bird Areas of Timor-Leste Dili Municipality {{EastTimor-geo-stub

Description

Birds

See also

References