Every year, billions of songbirds migrate thousands of kilometres between the European and African continent. The fascinating behaviour of migration that we are witnessing today is assumed to have evolved through a series of dispersal events from Africa into Europe since the last glaciation period. Recent technological advances are currently enabling us to track yet smaller songbirds throughout their migration cycle providing valuable insight into the life cycle of individual birds. However, direct tracking of migratory birds has so far mainly been conducted on single populations and our understanding of entire species migration systems is thus still limited. In this project we analyse the spatio-temporal migration schedule of Red-backed Shrikes, Lanius collurio, using tracking data from individuals originating from geographically distinct breeding populations (Scandinavia, the Netherlands, Spain and Greece). This will enable us to examine how consistent staging areas and migration routes are being utilised among individuals and populations in time and space throughout the annual migration cycle. If migration has evolved through dispersal of individuals across the Palearctic region from Africa we will expect to find at least some overlap in staging areas between populations.