Cuckoo bird has crossed the Sahara 10 times in 5 years
By Nicoletta Lanese - Staff Writer 10 hours ago
(Image credit: Getty / Education Images / Contributor)
A cuckoo bird named PJ just broke an impressive record: He traveled more than 50,000 miles (80,000 kilometers) in the past five years while migrating to and from the U.K.
Common cuckoos (Cuculus canorus) spend their winters in Africa and migrate to the U.K. in the spring to nest, typically arriving in late April and early May, according to the British Trust for Ornithology (BTO). But the familiar birds have become much scarcer in recent decades, with their numbers falling by about 65% in Britain since the early 1980s. In 2009, the species was added to the "red list" of the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, meaning the birds are of the highest conservation priority in the U.K., The Guardian reported.
To better understand why cuckoo populations are declining, the BTO launched the Cuckoo Tracking Project in 2011 to tag and monitor the birds during their intercontinental migration. The team placed a satellite tag on PJ in 2016, as a part of the tracking project. Since then, they've monitored the cuckoo's travels over the Sahara desert and the Ivory Coast of Africa, through France and Spain, and finally back to Suffolk, England, where he was first found.
Now, as of April 23, PJ is the first bird in the Cuckoo Tracking Project to complete five migrations back to his English breeding ground, the BTO announced. In the past five years, PJ has crossed the Sahara 10 times, soared through Africa's Atlas Mountains and navigated Europe's Pyrenees, environment correspondent Emily Beament reported for PA Media.
More:
https://www.livescience.com/cuckoo-bird-pj-back-to-uk.html
