A cuckoo which was tagged in Killarney last summer has arrived back in the national park.
The three birds were tagged by the Cuckoo Tracking Project last May; with each cuckoo tracked as far south as the Democratic Republic of Congo.
The project was set up in the hopes of establishing reasons behind the decline in the bird, by observing its migration patterns.
The study is a collaboration between the National Parks and Wildlife Service (NPWS) and the British Trust for Ornithology (BTO).
KP was the first cuckoo to arrive back to Killarney after a winter spent in the rainforests of the Congo Basin in Central Africa.
The bird set off from Ireland on its 9,000km trip last June, crossing Europe, where it spent a number of weeks by the foot of the Italian Alps.
In August, KP crossed the Sahara desert and arrived in Chad, before flying south to the Democratic Republic of Congo.
After a spell there, KP moved west via Cameroon and Ghana to the Ivory Coast; before flying northwards from the Western Sahara, towards Marrakesh.
On it’s route back to Ireland, the cuckoo flew by Spain, Gibraltar and France before crossing the Bay of Biscay on an almost 1,100km flight to Ireland.
KP has now arrived in Derrycunihy, in Killarney National Park, the place where he was originally tagged before his journey.
The other cuckoos, Torc and Cores, are also on their migration flight back to Ireland, with both most recently tracked in France.
The cuckoos, tagged in Killarney National Park, can be tracked live here.
