This is the third ‘autumn’ that we have been able to follow Joe, after he was satellite tagged in Norfolk in May 2022, and he has taken much the same route this year as on earlier migrations.

Mirroring his previous movements, he is currently in south-east Chad, nearing the Bahr Aouk River, on the border of Central African Republic.  

Having crossed the Sahara a week ago, Joe has been taking it relatively easy.

He moved down through north-east Nigeria, passing through Cameroon and is currently in the Chari-Baguirmi region of southern Chad.

Joe set off across the Mediterranean from Sardinia on Saturday night (13), covering 240 km (150 miles) of open water before arriving in North Africa close to Tunis, the capital city of Tunisia.

From here he carried on southward and commenced his non-stop flight across the Sahara. Our last signal, received yesterday evening (16), saw him some 2,800 km (1,740 miles) from his point of entry on the Tunisian coast. He is now in south-eastern Niger, close to the Nigerian and Chad borders.

Joe was the first our tagged Cuckoos to cross the Sahara last year too – he doesn’t hang about!    

Joe has finally tired of life around Saint-Tropez after a stay of almost three weeks.

He is the first of our Cuckoos to leave the continental mainland and has now made his way to Sardinia. Currently located close to the south coast of the island, near the capital city Cagliari, he is poised to make the relatively short crossing to North Africa.

By this time last year, he had already left Sardinia and had started to cross the Sahara...

Joe has really covered some ground since the last update, just four days ago. After leaving the area around the Somme, he has flown approximately 868 km (540 miles) to the Mediterranean coast and is now close to the glamorous ‘jet set’ resort of Saint-Tropez.

Will Joe be the first of our tagged Cuckoos to cross into North Africa?

Having spent the past few weeks around Cranwich Heath, just north of Thetford in Norfolk, Joe has now set off on his ‘autumn’ migration. Heading south-east, he passed Colchester, then cut down to the Kent coast before setting off across the Channel, leaving UK soil between Folkestone and Dover.

Having made landfall around the Somme Estuary, after a flight of around 265 km (164 miles), he is now resting and feeding before continuing his journey through France.

Since being tagged in June 2022, this is the third successive autumn migration where Joe will be tracked, providing us with yet more invaluable data.

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.  

Since our last update Joe has flown 250km (155 miles) north west from his last location in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, over the border into the Republic of Congo.

He is now in north-eastern Congo, approximately 85km south of the town of Impfondo. 

Joe remains on his wintering grounds in the Congo Basin.

He is currently near a large oxbow lake on the Busira RIver in north-west Democratic Republic of the Congo. We expect to see Joe moving west soon.  

Earlier this week, Joe left southern Chad and flew 930km (578 miles) south to the Democratic Republic of Congo.

He is currently 300km north-west of Torc, on the banks of the Busira river in the rainforest of the Congo Basin.

Over the last few days Joe has flown 600 km (373 miles) east from Nigeria, over northern Cameroon and into southern Chad.

He is now 25 km (15.5 miles) south east of the city of Bousso in the Chari-Baguirmi region of Chad.

Having had a brief rest after completing his desert crossing, new updates received from Joe's tag this morning show that he has flown 440 km (273 miles) south–east, from Niger and into Nigeria.

He is now a few miles east of Jalam in the Bauchi region in north–east Nigeria. 

We are pleased to report that since our last update Joe has completed his crossing of the Sahara, the first of our tagged birds to do so this year.

His journey south across the desert took him just west of the Aïr Mountains of northern Niger. By yesterday afternoon (Sunday 16 July) he had reached southern Niger and was close to the village of Tchadoua. Tchadoua is approximately 38 km (23 miles) east of Niger's second largest city, Maradi. 

He is in the Sahel now where it is the rainy season and he will hopefully find plenty of food to replenish his depleted fat stores.  

Joe is attempting to cross the Sahara, the first of our tagged birds to take on the desert this year. 

When we last reported on him he was taking a break in Sardinia and new updates received last night (Thursday 13 June) show that he has flown at least 2,270 km (1,410 miles) since.

His journey has taken him across the Mediterranean and by late yesterday afternoon he was flying over Tassili N'Ajjer National Park in south-eastern Algeria. He pressed on and by 6:30 this morning (Friday 14 June) had reached north west Niger.

He seems to have made good progress across the desert so hopefully by the time the next updates arrive he will have successfully completed his Sahara crossing. 

New updates from Joe's tag arrived yesterday evening (Wednesday 12 June) showed that he had flown 483 km (300 miles) south-east from his last location in the south of France.

This journey has taken him just over half-way across the Mediterranean towards north Africa, landing him on Sardinia.

By 8pm last night he was near Bari Sardo in the eastern part of Sardinia. A further, lower quality signal suggests that he pressed on towards Africa so we await further updates with interest.

Over the last few days, Joe has relocated further west – he is now in the hills above the town of Bormes-des-Mimosas in the Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur Region of south-eastern France.

He is visiting the area surrounding the tiny restored Church of Notre Dame de Constance, with views down to the coast around La Faviere.

Over the last few days, Joe has flown almost 600 km (373 miles) south from Troyes in north-central France to Provence on the south coast.

After a brief stop close to the village of Roumoules in the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region on Friday evening, he pressed on towards the coast. By the evening of Saturday 24 June, he had reached Provence, and has spent the time since close to the wineries of Le Baou d'Infer and Domaine Sainte Marie – he is clearly a Cuckoo of impeccable taste!

Last year Joe stopped off approximately 25 km further north-east, close to Saint-Maxime. He stayed there for a couple of weeks before flying straight across the Mediterranean and the Sahara to Chad, arriving on 4 July. 

Over the last couple of days Joe has left his breeding grounds in Norfolk and flown 510 km (317 miles) south-east, across the English Channel and into France.

By 8:30 a.m. yesterday (Thursday 22 June) he had reached the outskirts of the town of Troyes in the Grand Est region of north-central France, where he remained for the rest of the day.

Last year Joe made his move south about a week earlier, and by 15 June he was already on the French Riviera. 

Since arriving in eastern Ivory Coast on 2 March Joe has made a detour south towards Bettié and returned to Damé after a few days. Earlier this week he flew 73km (45 miles) north west to Kofi Akakro, where he has remained. This being the first year in which we have tracked his spring migration we don’t know when he is likely to embark on his desert crossing.