KP, the last of our tagged Irish Cuckoos has set off!

He left Ireland on 27 June, passing the South Wales coast before cutting speedily across southern England and crossing the Channel at Kent, before stopping just south of Lille, near the Belgian border - a journey of 936 km (580 miles).

After a brief respite, he set off south-east and covered another 808 km (502 miles), passing the French city of Nancy. KP then cut across south-west Germany and western Austria, before arriving on the shores of Lake Reschen, in northern Italy’s Tyrolean mountains on 29 June!

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.  

KP has flown 405km (252 miles) south from his last location in Central African Republic to Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). He is now in north-west DRC.  

After more than a month in southern Chad, Irish Cuckoo KP is on the move again.

New updates received this morning (Monday 23 October), show that he has flown 464km (288 miles) south and is now in Central African Republic (CAR). He is in the northern part of the Ouaka region of CAR, approximately 200km north of the border with Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Sussex Cuckoo Sayaan also passed through CAR a few days ago and is now in the Congo Basin.  

After keeping us waiting for a week, KP is finally on the move again and has flown 71 km (44 miles) south in Sudan. He is now in the Meidob volcanic field, an area of 100 km x 50 km of lava flows in northern Darfur.

This is largely a barren area but there are mountain springs, wadis and a lake which support the growth of trees and shrubs. Hopefully KP is finding sufficient food here to keep him going as he nears the southern edge of the Sahara. 

We have been waiting anxiously for further updates on KP's progress across the desert, willing him on during his epic journey. Since our last update he has battled on south, flying a further 920 km (572 miles) from Egypt into Sudan.

The most recent updates received between 3 pm and 10 pm yesterday showed him in the desert some 50 km north of the Meidob volcanic field in Darfur, Sudan.

Although he is still in the desert, he appears to be in a seasonal river bed and with heavy thunderstorms yesterday, he may well be able to find some food here.

We'll keep our fingers crossed that the next time we receive an update from KP's tag he will have completed his desert crossing. 

KP has been rather dormant of late, but he's now on the move again. He's finally left northern Italy, departing on Saturday night at around 10pm and progressing south-east through Italy.

By 6:45 on Sunday morning he had reached the foot of Italy but pressed on across the Mediterranean and by 16:25 yesterday afternoon he had reached Tobruk on Libya's eastern Mediterranean coast, near the border with Egypt.

He has since progressed onwards south into the Sahara and by the time the last update reached us at 09:17 this morning he had flown 772 km (480 miles) from Tobruk. At that time he was over the desert, straddling the border between Libya and Egypt, approximately 215 km (134 miles) north-east of the Libyan town of Al Jawf.  

KP has flown 2,750 km (1,708 miles) since leaving Northern Italy on Saturday night. Hopefully he has enough energy reserves to take him the rest of the way across the desert, despite the long journey he has already undertaken. 

By early Wednesday morning (28 June), KP had crossed the Alps and arrived in northern Italy. He passed over San Pellegrino Terme and moved on south-east towards Lake Garda.

The latest updates from his tag arrived early this morning. They show him in the hills to the east of the town of Nave, in the province of Brescia, in Lombardy, Italy.

KP is on the move! He left his breeding grounds yesterday afternoon and flew 86 km (53 miles) east. He spent the rest of the day in or around Castleblagh Forest, close to the village of Ballyhooly in County Cork.

A couple of further updates received late last night suggest that he may since have moved on, in a south-easterly direction towards Youghal. Will he stop again before crossing the sea, or is he aiming for Cornwall – or even France?

Cuckoo KP was tagged at Incheens in Killarney National Park, one of several male Cuckoos caught by our team on the morning of 17 May. He is one of four Cuckoos tagged in Ireland this year.

Since being tagged, KP has remained in the same area.