GPS tracking of common cuckoos has revealed complex migration routes through Europe and Africa, helping identify key stopover sites and threats during the annual journey.
Wild cuckoos face welfare challenges throughout their migration. Long-distance migrants experience exhaustion, starvation at poor-quality stopover sites, and mortality from weather events. The Sahel stopover zone is increasingly degraded, leaving migrating cuckoos with fewer refuelling options during the crossing of the Sahara. Tracking data shows that individual cuckoos that fail to find adequate food during stopovers have dramatically reduced survival prospects. Protecting key migratory stopover habitats in Africa is therefore a high-priority welfare and conservation action.