The Migration Routes

Every year, GPS-tagged raptors, storks and other birds leave Europe for Africa, before making the return trip in spring. This map animates the real trajectories of individuals tracked as part of four scientific studies: the white stork (Ciconia ciconia, “LifeTrack White Stork Bavaria” study, Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior, 2014-2023), Montagu’s harrier (Circus pygargus, Trierweiler et al. 2014), the common cuckoo (Cuculus canorus, Thorup et al. 2020) and the European honey buzzard (Pernis apivorus, Byholm et al. 2025).

Each line is the real journey of a bird, reconstructed from its GPS or satellite positions. The trajectories reveal very different strategies and corridors depending on the species: some birds reach southern Africa within a few months, others stop much further north; the common cuckoo takes a looping route west across the Sahel, documented here with a sparser dataset (low-frequency satellite tags) than the other species; the honey buzzard sometimes stays nearly motionless at its wintering site for almost a full year before setting off again.