Suffolk cuckoo extends it record-breaking annual migration

PJ has has clocked up almost 60,000 miles since being tagged in the King's Forest near Bury St Edmunds

A cuckoo already credited with completing a record-breaking trip from Africa has clocked up even more miles after returning to the UK.

PJ was fitted with a satellite tag in the King's Forest, Suffolk, in 2016 and has since travelled almost 60,000 miles during his annual migration.

Last year he became the first satellite-tagged cuckoo to clock-up 50,000 miles since research began, the British Trust for Ornithology said.

This year was his sixth tagged journey.

The cuckoo was tagged in his second year, meaning he had already completed one migration to and from the rain forests of west Africa.

Each complete migration from his Suffolk grounds, near Bury St Edmunds, to his wintering grounds in the Congo Basin and back again is approximately 9,940 miles (16,000 km).

Cuckoos visit the UK in spring with females laying eggs in nests of other species to trick them into rearing their chicks for them.

A satellite map shows the migratory route of PJ the cuckoo, to and from Suffolk

The BTO's tracking project aims to find out what is causing a decline in the population of cuckoos, which have been on the Red List of Birds of Conservation Concern since 2009.

Breeding cuckoo numbers have declined by more than two-thirds across the UK and nearly three-quarters in England in the past 23 years, the BTO said.

PJ has crossed the Sahara dessert numerous times navigated the Atlas Mountains in Morocco and flown over the Pyrenees in France and Spain (pictured)

As cuckoo PJ had already completed one migration cycle before he was first tagged in 2016, this brings the record-breaking bird's total mileage over his lifetime to 69,580 miles (112,000 km).

On its website, the BTO said: "PJ will have to survive another year to vie for the crown of the UK's oldest known cuckoo, but his achievements so far have already exceeded our wildest expectations - what a bird."