The Red Sea is Egypt’s richest habitat in terms of biodiversity and is an internationally important route for many migratory waterbird species, especially soaring species. Sites face threats including from tourist activities, pollution and collection of bird eggs and chicks. This project proposes surveying of ten Red Sea islands which are Important Bird Areas (IBAs) and cover a diversity of important habitats for breeding, roosting and feeding of the birds, such as islands, mangroves, rocky and sandy beaches, isles, cliffs, open water, coral reefs, sea grass beds and tidal flats.

This project was carried out in Kenya, i.e. in the non-breeding range of the Madagascar Pond-heron, by the National Museums of Kenya. In the course of the project, implemented by the National Museums of Kenya, a total of 102 wetlands were visited in order to identify key sites for the species and increase knowledge on its distribution, ecology and habitat requirements. A total of 49 Madagascar Pond-herons were recorded in 23 of the monitored wetlands, 16 of which had no previous documented occurrence of the species.