Cuach Cores appears to have reoriented slightly from his last location in south-eastern France, and has now headed up to an area just north of the Italian city of Turin.

He has been following the River Po, Italy’s longest river; if he continues on this route it will take him eastwards, toward the Adriatic.

After spending several days around Châteaubriant, Cuach Cores finally got going again, and made a remarkable journey of around 823 km (511 miles) over the weekend.

Along the way, he spent a little time in the same area as Sayaan, near Dijon, before he moved determinedly south-east, past Grenoble and into the Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur region. He is just 113 km (70 miles) from the Mediterranean coast, from where he should cross into North Africa to begin the next leg of his journey.

Since leaving Ireland and arriving in north-west France a week ago, Cuach Cores has been taking it relatively easy, moving slowly south-eastwards into the Loire-Atlantique region.

Currently just north of the medieval town of Châteaubriant, he will likely head towards Italy and head down to Africa via an eastern route.

Cuach Cores was the last of our tagged Cuckoos to arrive back in the breeding grounds, and he is also the first to start heading back to Africa!

After spending just 28 days in Ireland, he took off south overnight and made landfall on the Brittany coast this morning (6 June) after a flight of 539km (335 miles).

Cuach Cores wasted no time after he left France, taking a direct route of around 560km (347 miles) back to Killarney National Park, where he was originally tagged on 17 May, 2023.

The majority of his flight was over open water, though he did pass briefly over the tip of Cornwall near Land's End!

He is the last of our still-active tagged Cuckoos to have returned to the breeding grounds this spring.

Cuach Cores has finally left France! After spending several days south of the city of Bourges, he has headed approximately 553km (343 miles) north-west to the Brittany coast.

From here, he seems to be heading towards Cornwall, where he could make brief landfall before continuing his journey - or will he veer off to the west and take a more direct route across the Celtic Sea to Ireland?

After a relatively brief stop on the Algerian / Tunisian border, Cores took a direct route of around 850km (528 miles) across the Mediterranean, arriving in southern France near the town of Montpellier.

He has continued a further 450km (280 miles) north and is now in central France, preparing for the last leg of his journey. When will he join KP in Ireland?

After a rather slow start, Cuach Cores has really sprung into life and in just a few short days has covered an astonishing 3,500km (2,175 miles) from Ghana, through Burkina Faso, Mali and Algeria. He is now poised to cross the Mediterranean near the Tunisian coast.    

Which direction will Cores take? He could veer west across to eastern Spain, head north to France via Sardinia or maybe take a more leisurely route up through Italy? Given the logical route from his current location to Ireland, a more direct sea crossing is most likely, but that comes with its perils! After such a lengthy desert crossing we hope that he’ll take time to rest and feed.  

Still south of the Sahara, Cuach Cores has moved 185km (114 miles) north in recent days, and is currently heading through the Savannah Region of northern Ghana.

He is 132km (82 miles) south of the Tamale, the capital city of the Northern Region and is reasonably close to both Mole National Park and Bui National Park, whose lush landscapes support populations of Elephant, Leopard and Hippopotamus.  

Cuach Cores remains south of the Sahara, but has finally moved west from his last location just north of Lagos, Nigeria. In just two days he covered some 390km (242 miles).

Passing through Benin and Togo, he is now in south-east Ghana, by the Volta River, just to the north of the Kwahu Mountains.

Cuach Cores has had a remarkable week, covering some 1,815km (1,127 miles) in just five days!

Since our last report on 4 April he has flown 707km (439 miles) west into Cameroon, where he spent some time just south of the Mbam et Djerem National Park.

After a short time here, he continued north-west moving rapidly across southern Nigeria, where after a 1,113km (691 miles) journey he was recorded close to the Benin border, just 170km (105 miles) north of Nigeria's capital, Lagos.

Cuach Cores has now crossed the Congo River and is heading north west having flown 775 km (482 miles) from his last location in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

He is now close to the border of the Central African Republic just 48 km (30 miles) east of the Ubangi River. His journey should see him continuing west through Cameroon and towards Nigeria.

Cuach Cores has flown 210km (130 miles) north within the Congo Basin of the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

He is now in the Maringa-Lopori-Wamba Forest Landscape, one of the least developed and remotest parts of the Congo Basin. Cores is surely on his way to west Africa now so we should see him moving on from here fairly soon.

Cuach Cores is the most easterly of all our tagged Cuckoos. He is currently in the rainforest between the Tshuapa and Maringa Rivers in the Congo Basin of north-central Democratic Republic of Congo.

We expect to see Cores moving west soon. 

Cuach Cores has relocated within the Congo Basin of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, flying 150km (92 miles) south from an area close to the Tshopo River to his new location close to the Maringa River.

Cuach Cores has flown 234km (146 miles) south within the Democratic Republic of the Congo, taking him deeper into the Congo Basin.

He is now approximately 90km south of the town of Bumba and just south of the Tshuapa River.

Cuach Cores has moved 243km (151 miles) east within CAR to his current location on the banks of the Kotto River in the southern tip of the Haute-Kotto prefecture.

Although October signals the end of the wet season in CAR, there have been significant thunderstorms in this area during the last week and above average rainfall so far for the month of November.

Over the last few days Cuach Cores has been moving steadily south from his last location in southern Chad.

By early yesterday morning (Tuesday 7 November) he had flown 370km (230 miles) south, taking him over the border into Central African Republic (CAR).

He is now in the western part of the Ouaka prefecture of CAR, 280km north-east of the capital Bangui. 

Over the last couple of days Cuach Cores has flown 730km (454 miles) east from Nigeria, over northern Cameroon and into southern Chad. 

After spending the last week in southern Niger, Cuach Cores has flown 407km (253 miles) south-east into Nigeria.

He is now in the south-western corner of Borno state in north-eastern Nigeria.

New updates received from Cuach Cores' tag on Saturday afternoon (14 October) showed that he had successfully completed his desert crossing. He has now reached southern Niger where he is hopefully finding plenty of food along the banks of the seasonal Korama River, some 50km south of the city of Zinder.  

Between departing Spain sometime on Tuesday 10 October and arriving in southern Niger on Saturday 14 October, Cores has flown approximately 3,361km (2,088 miles). What a thrill it has been to follow his late charge from France to Niger. Will he now pause for a rest, or will he press on to the Congo? 

We have been waiting with baited breath to see what Cuach Cores' next move would be and thankfully we didn't have long to wait. New updates received between yesterday afternoon and this morning show that he has not only reached Africa but is making excellent progress across the Sahara.

His journey so far has taken him from Spain, across the Mediterranean to Algeria and on south into Niger. The latest update arrived at 10:15 this morning and showed that Cores had passed to the east of the Air Mountains of northern Niger. There are favourable north-easterly winds in this area at the moment which will hopefully give Cores some welcome assistance as he progresses south.  A few hundred kilometers more and he'll be safely across the desert. 

When we loaded the satellite data earlier today we were greeted by the welcome news that Cuach Cores is on the move again!

After progressing south through France and then east into Italy, he returned to eastern France and very nearly ventured into Switzerland before heading west again and spending the last few weeks near Bordeaux. 

He is a long way behind out other surviving tagged Cuckoos which are all south of the Sahara.

Having almost given up hope for him, we were delighted to find that we had received updates from his tag early this morning showing that he had flown 450km south into Spain and is now in the mountainous Serra de Llaberia natural park, Catalonia. 

Hopefully Cuach Cores is carrying sufficient fat reserves to fuel his onward journey into Africa and across the Sahara, fingers crossed!

Cuach Cores' tag is still transmitting loud and clear from a location in the countryside south of the town of Arsac, just north of Bordeaux, France.

Although we don't have any conclusive evidence that Cuach Cores has perished, the fact that he has spent so long in the same location and is so far behind the tagged Cuckoos makes us fear the worst for him.

Cuach Cores has continued his move east, flying 321 km (200 miles) east to his new location in the countryside north-west of the city of Morteau. Morteau is in the Bourgogne-Franche-Comté region of eastern France and just 6 km or so from the Swiss border.

He is now only 215 km from the stop-over location in northern Italy that he started this part of his detour from, will he cross the Alps again back into Northern Italy?

New updates received from Cuach Cores' tag between 3 am and 10 am this morning show that he has flown 141 km (88 miles) east from his last location.

He has spent the last few hours close to EDF's Dampierre nuclear power plant  in the town of Dampierre-en-Burly, in the Loiret department of north-central France. 

Over the last couple of days Cuach Cores has flown 390 km (243 miles) north-west through France, taking him to the Indre-et-Loire department in central France. He is close to the town of Les Hermites, approximately 30 km (18 miles) north of Tours. 

Although we have seen Cuckoos turn back on themselves before, the size of this movement makes us suspect that Cores was unable to improve his body condition at the stop-over locations he had used further south. Hopefully he will find a better feeding area now that will enable him to build up his fat reserves for the journey ahead.  

Since crossing back into France from Italy, Cuach Cores has flown 270 km (168 miles) west and is now in the Lozère department in southern France.

He is currently 8 km (5 miles) north of the town of Marvejols and very close to The Wolves of Gevaudan wildlife park.  

Having been so quick off the mark and being the first of our tagged Cuckoos to leave, we might have expected Cuach Cores to be well on his way south by now. But instead, he has spent the past five weeks or so in north-western Italy. He has remained close to the River Elvo, between Salussola and Carisio in the Province of Vercelli.

New updates received from Cores' tag between midnight and 7 am this morning (4 August) show that he has flown 212 km (132 miles) south-west, back over the Alps into south-eastern France. He is currently a few km east of the town of Digne in the Alpes-de-Haute-Provence department of France. Could this be the start of Cuach Cores' next major leg of his journey south?

Cuach Cores has spent the last few days in the area close to the River Elvo, between Salussola and Carisio in the Province of Vercelli, in the Italian region of Piedmont. 

Over the last 24 hours Cores has flown 277 km (172 miles) north-east from his last location near Rustrel in the south of France. He crossed over the Alps to his new location, just south of the town of Buronzo in the Province of Vercelli, in the Italian region of Piedmont. 

Cuach Cores has continued his journey south through France. He has spent the last 24 hours close to the village of Rustrel, in the Parc Naturel Regional du Luberon in the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region of south-eastern France.

Cuach Cores has continued his journey south through France – by around 9 p.m. last night he had crossed the Loire and was in the south-eastern corner of the Maine-et-Loire department of Western France. His tag shows him in woodland close to the Canal de la Dive, just south of the commune of Bellevigne-les-Châteaux. 

Our Cuckoo tracking work has shown us that our male Cuckoos set off on their migrations back to Africa sooner than we had previously thought, often during the first few days of June. We are excited to report that Cuach Cores has become the first of our tagged birds to set off this year.

Updates received last night showed that he had crossed the Irish Sea, spending some time yesterday evening in Dylan Thomas country, close to Laugharne and Llansteffan in South West Wales. Further updates received this morning suggest that he didn’t hang about here but pressed on south towards northern France. The most recent update showed him nearing the Brittany coastline close to Saint Malo and Mont Saint-Michel.

Hopefully we’ll receive further updates very soon confirming that he has reached dry land in France.

Cuach is Irish for Cuckoo, and Cores is a mountain in Killarney National Park where this bird was tagged. He was one of several handsome male Cuckoos caught by the tagging team on the morning of 17 May.

On 3 June Cores had moved east to a new position, just south of Ballincollig, but he soon progressed to the coast before moving north to Slievenamon Bog.

He has since moved west, and at lunchtime on 6 June he was in or over Garryowen, a suburb of Limerick.