Onon, photographed in 2019 just before release after being fitted with a satellite tag.
The remarkable travels of Onon, a satellite-tagged Common Cuckoo featured heavily in the media this week, with an article in the UK's Guardian and also featured on BBC radio and television.
Onon was one of five birds tagged in June 2019, four of them Common Cuckoos and one Oriental Cuckoo. The bird successfully completed a round trip of 26,000 km from its breeding site in Mongolia, all the way to Zambia in southern Africa.
During its epic migration, the bird took in 27 border crossings and 16 countries and on the return leg flew right across the ocean from the Horn of Africa to northwest India.
The Mongolia Cuckoo Project is a joint initiative by the Wildlife Science and Conservation Center (WSCC) of Mongolia and the British Trust for Ornithology (BTO), facilitated by Birding Beijing and generously supported by the Oriental Bird Club and Mr Dick Newell.
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