As we intimated in our last update, Cuach Cores was certainly poised and ready to complete his journey to Ireland. He didn’t mess around. He took off in a north-westerly direction, passing up through Brittany before heading straight out to sea, and on towards the Isles of Scilly. Continuing on, he arrived on the County Cork coast before forging on to Killarney National Park, County Kerry, where he was tagged on 17 May 2023. 

Cuach Cores spent little more than six weeks on his breeding grounds last summer – how long will he stay this year?

Since we last posted his whereabouts just three days ago, Cleeve has left central Spain and made his way more than 900 km (560 miles) crossing the Bay of Biscay, and into western France. 

From here he should make his way swiftly back to the UK and towards Thetford Forest, Norfolk, where he was filmed by the BBC One Show, being tagged and released in May 2024!     

Sayann left the Pyrenees and took off across France at the end of last week, covering almost 1,000 km (620 miles) before arriving on the English coast on Saturday. He passed over Brighton and headed inland, straight to the Knepp Estate where he was tagged on 18 May, 2023. 

He returned five days earlier this year than he did last spring, when he took an unusual route north through Italy before arriving back in Sussex. 

As we anticipated, Joe took flight and left western France just before the weekend, making his way towards The Channel. He commenced his crossing from the Normandy coast close to the port of Ouistreham, and arrived in the UK close to Eastbourne. From there he continued onwards, and by the early hours of this morning he was back in Norfolk, close to Thetford Forest, where he was caught and tagged in May 2022.   

Following a period of radio silence, Cleeve’s tag sprang into life last week and showed that he was crossing the Sahara in south-east Mauritania. From here he headed to the Moroccan coast, from where he took a flight across to mainland Europe, arriving on the Portuguese / Spanish border. 

By Saturday he was in central western Spain, close to the Sierra de Gredos Regional Park in the province of Ávila, Castile and León. In just two days, Cleeve covered almost 2,500 km (1,550 miles)!   

Cores left Spain, and after a flight across the Bay of Biscay, came ashore in western France on Saturday. Currently in farmland on the outskirts of the town of Villeneuve-en-Retz in the Loire-Atlantique department, he is poised to head north straight into Ireland. Last year he arrived in County Cork on 22 April, so he’s pretty much on schedule!   

After making his way steadily north up through western France in the last few days, Jim launched across The Channel from Bayeux and arrived on the coast near Worthing in the early hours of this morning. From here, he headed swiftly inland and is now just around 11 km (7 miles), south of Wisborough Green, where he was tagged last May.

Following his arrival in eastern Spain a week ago, Joe has flown just over 1,000 km (620 miles) and is now just north of the Regional National Park of the Marais Poitevin, in the Pays de la Loire region of western France. 

This is the fourth consecutive spring where we have been able to follow Joe’s incredible journeys. Tagged in East Anglia back in 2022, Joe arrived back on his regular breeding grounds on April 28 last year, April 29 in 2024 and on April 24 in 2023. Will we see him back on Norfolk soil this weekend? 

Following our last update, just three days ago, Arthur left south-central Spain and headed north to Bilbao. From here he continued across the Bay of Biscay and crossed into France just to the west of Nantes, in the Upper Brittany region. He didn’t linger, and the next stage of his flight took him north, passing Saint Malo, skirting by Jersey and then into The Channel via Cherbourg. 

By the early hours of Saturday he was on the Isle of Wight, and he wasted no time heading rapidly north-east from here. He crossed London overnight, and then headed straight for Suffolk. He is currently just west of Halesworth, and within a short distance of Worlingham Marshes nature reserve where he was tagged in May 2025. 

As the first of our tagged birds to arrive in Europe, we anticipated that Ashok may also be the first to make it to the UK this spring. Having spent a few days just to the west of Valencia in early April, he continued his journey north. Last weekend he covered over 1,000 km (620 miles), crossing the Pyrenees and flying onward through central France. 

After a short stop in the large forest of Rambouillet, just to the west of Paris, he swiftly carried on and touched down in Suffolk on 7 April. While we were delighted to see Ashok back on UK soil, he seemed less impressed… in less than 48 hours Ashok had flown 300 km (186 miles) south and returned to France! He is currently on the banks of the River Seine, close to the city of Rouen in Normandy. Hopefully he will find plenty of food here to fuel his journey back to Suffolk!