Updates from our Cuckoos

Since arriving in Breckland, Norfolk three days ago, Joe has been touring around the Thetford Forest area and is currently exploring the fields and hedgerows roughly 10km south east of Downham Market.

Demonstrating just how site-faithful these Cuckoos can be, Joe has arrived back in the Brecklands in  Norfolk, less than 20km (12 miles) from where he was tagged in early summer 2022. He is just five days later than his return to the same area in 2023.

Since leaving the Bordeaux region a few days ago, he has covered around 950km (590 miles), flying due north, crossing the Channel close to Bayeux and hitting UK soil around Bognor Regis.

Joe is the first of our tagged Cuckoos to reach France, having moved some 580km (360 miles) since his last location on the Spanish / Portuguese border.

He flew north-east, passing over Bilbao and took a little short-cut over the Bay of Biscay, arriving in the Nouvelle-Aquitaine region, in an area of coastal lakes just 75km (46 miles) south-west of Bordeaux.

Joe continues to stick close to the Portuguese border and after a 172km (106 miles) journey north is now exploring the area just east of the town of Saucelle, close to the Arribes del Duero Natural Park.

Will his next big move see him heading north-east and into France west of the Pyrenees, or will he cut across a stretch of the Bay of Biscay and make landfall further north along the French coast?

Joe has moved north-east through Portugal, crossing the border into Spain close to the city of Badajoz. He's continued northwards to an area just 4km (2.5 miles) to the west of Cáceres, in Extramadura, covering around 355km (220 miles) since his arrival in Europe just two days ago.

After entering Morocco via the very western edge of Algeria, Joe headed up to the Atlantic coast, and stopped for a while close to the town of Safi.

He then forged onwards a further 518km (321 miles) and swiftly became the first of our Cuckoos to arrive in Europe, making landfall near the town of Bordeira, in the Algarve, Portugal.

After a spell in Ivory Coast, Joe has forged 2,240km (1,391 miles) north and is now just crossing into western Algeria, on the borders with Western Sahara and Morocco.

His current location puts him just c500km (310 miles) due east of the Canary Islands!

Joe has flown 111km (69 miles) west from Ghana into Ivory Coast.

He is now 8km (5 miles) north-west of the town of Ettrokro in east-central Ivory Coast. 

Over the last few days Joe has flown 1,443km (897 miles) west, taking him out of Cameroon and into Ghana, via Nigeria, Benin and Togo.

His route has taken him across the north end of Lake Volta and onwards west towards the town of Kintampo in the Bono East Region of Ghana.

In 2023 Joe made this same move west two weeks earlier, arriving in Ghana on 27 Feb. He then remained around the Ghana/Ivory Coast border until early April before popping up again in southern France on 9 April and returning to the UK on 24 April. 

New updates received from Joe's tag early this morning show that he has flown 636km (395 miles) north west through Cameroon. He is now approximately 75km east of the city of Bafoussam in the West region of Cameroon.