Updates from our Cuckoos

KP finally made landfall on the southern coast of Ireland, just to the south of Dungarvan in County Waterford.

After a short while he headed west through County Cork and is now in Killarney National Park, County Kerry, where he was originally tagged on 17 May 2023.

Rather than following a more land-based route, KP suddenly left northern Spain and set off due north, crossing the Bay of Biscay and continuing his flight over water, covering some 1,090 km (677 miles)!

Skirting past the Isles of Scilly and pushing north, at the time of his last signal KP was just 70km (43 miles) from the south east coast of Ireland. Once he makes landfall will he head straight to Killarney National Park, where he was tagged on 17 May last year?

KP has flown around 388km (241 miles) due north and is now in area of fertile plains just south of the Montaña Palentina Natural Park, in the province of Castile and León.  

Just 88km (54 miles) from the coast at Santander, will he head north before making a short crossing over the Bay of Biscay, or might he fly east and cross into France to the west of the Pyranees?

Lagging slightly behind Trent and Cuach Torc, KP has moved a comparatively leisurely 125km (77 miles) north since leaving the Sierra de Hornachuelos Natural Park area a few days ago.

He is currently just south of the municipality of Villarta de los Montes, in forest-clad mountains to the south of the Embalse de Cíjara, a large reservoir on the Guadiana River.

KP motored north, cutting across the Atlantic west of the Straits of Gibraltar, covering some 872km (541 miles).

He passed over Seville, crossing the River Guadalquivir near Alolea del Rió, and is currently resting up in the Unesco-listed Parque Natural Sierra de Hornachuelos, just to the north-west of Córdoba.  

As we’d anticipated, KP moved northwards from Western Sahara and into Morocco in recent days.

Covering around 476km (295 miles) he is currently just at the western edge of the High Atlas Mountains, not far from the walled city of Taroudant, approximately just 113km (70 miles) south-west of Marrakesh.

Having spent the best part of the last month in south-eastern Ivory Coast, KP has now headed 483km (300 miles) north-west into the Sikasso Region of southern Mali. His next move should see him pushing across the Sahara.

Since our last update KP has shifted south and is now close to the town of Agboville in south-eastern Ivory Coast. 

Since our last update Irish Cuckoo KP has made a big move West. Over the last week or so he has departed the Congo and flown 2,208km (1,372 miles) via Cameroon and Ghana to his new location in Ivory Coast.

This makes him the second of our tagged Cuckoos (after Trent) to make the move west. He is currently in eastern Ivory Coast, just north of the city of Abengourou.

The influence of the inter-tropical convergence zone means that there has been significant rainfall in this area over the past few weeks so KP will be able to benefit from the abundance of insects that this brings.

We expect KP to remain in west Africa for a few weeks while he feeds up in preparation for the next leg of his journey which will take him north across the Sahara.

KP spent November and December in the same general area close to the Salonga River deep in the rainforest of the Congo Basin of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). 

Since mid January he has been moving steadily north-west and is now 536km (333 miles) from his wintering area, taking him out of DRC and into the Republic of Congo. He is currently on the edge of Nouabalé-Ndoki National Park, a huge area of swampy lowland rainforest in northern Republic of Congo.