We have received no further data from Martin since 9th April, and sadly must now assume that he is dead.

Martin made it as far as Lorca in southern Spain, where we last heard from him. In that last transmission his tag temperature dropped from a normal 30-32 degrees Centigrade to 11.7, a gradual change over the course of a night. While fearing for the worst, we did hope that he might pop up further north. We are now convinced that this is very unlikely, and must announce Martin's demise.

Martin has bequeathed a wealth of knowledge that has improved our understanding of Cuckoo migration. Of our original band of five, Martin was the first to return to Europe. As the only Cuckoo over two years old, he was looking good to be the first bird to return. He may have fallen victim to some severe weather conditions, which the other birds avoided by crossing the Mediterranean a little later.

Despite being the first of our Cuckoos to safely cross the Sahara and the Mediterranean, we have received no further data from Martin since 6th April. There has been some bad weather across the Mediterranean in recent days, proving a challenge for all migratory birds, but we are increasingly concerned. 

Martin was the first of our Cuckoos to return to Europe, but we have not received a signal from him since his last movement in Spain on 6 April. The weather may have had something to do with him staying put for a few days with thunderstorms, hail and strong northerly winds.

There was no signal from Martin yesterday (11 April) and we shall be concerned if there is nothing in the transmission period that starts tomorrow. As far as we know he is still in Lorca.

Martin made it as far as Lorca in southern Spain, where we last heard from him. At about 2200 his tag temperature dropped from a normal 30-32 degrees Centigrade to 11.7. This is not necessarily a bad thing as tag temperature drops to these levels when birds are migrating at altitude. However it was not a step change and was a gradual change over the course of a night. Due to transmit tonight (10 April), hopefully we'll pick him up somewhere further north.

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Thanks to Helen who sent in this picture of her local area in Lorca in which Martin last transmitted from.  She reported that the it's 'open hilly area with mostly (almond and olive) trees and some small groups of pine trees here and there. The weather has been very cloudy for days with rain and even hail until April 5. On April 6 and 7 there was a strong wind from the north west'.

No news from Easter Sunday - Martin missed a scheduled transmission and we have not heard from Lyster since 1 April.

Locations received last night showed that Martin had crossed over from Algeria into Spain. At 0325hrs he was situated in a well-wooded landscape about 18km (11 miles) west of Lorca in Murcia region. Although we can’t tell exactly where he crossed the Mediterranean, he appears to have taken a very similar route to that taken by Clement on his southward passage last July. This makes Martin the first of the Cuckoos to make it into Europe - will he be the first to reach Britain?

Martin has successfully completed his desert crossing – by the evening of 3 April he was settled in woodland high in the Atlas Mountains of the Sidi-bel-Abbes region of Algeria. He is presumably taking a well-earned rest and undertaking a period of recuperation before heading north to Britain.

Fascinatingly, he is 37km (22 miles) south of the location that Clement stopped at before crossing the desert in a southwards direction, having crossed the Mediteranean from Cabo de Gata in southern Spain to the Algerian coast near Oran. We are excited to see whether he will re-trace Clement’s steps in reverse, thus taking a direct route back to Britain and forming a loop in his migration route.

Having received no locations for Martin since 18 March, we suspected we were witnessing the now-familiar pattern of a tag failing to charge for some time prior to the bird’s departure and were anticipating it bursting into life when he moved on.

During the afternoon of 1 April, we duly received a series of poorly-resolved locations that, taken together, showed that Martin was making his northwards desert crossing. During the several hours of transmissions as he moved from Mali into Algeria, he was moving over the earth’s surface at average speeds in excess of 100km (62 mph) per hour!

It is notable that Martin is the only one of our tagged Cuckoo who is more than two years old; as older birds are generally expected to arrive back before younger birds.

Sadly, the transmission period finished before he had completed his desert crossing and we won't receive further signals for a couple of days but we can't wait to see what he does next!

We haven't received any further transmissions since the 18 March for Martin.  The weather there is currently warm and wet with thunderstorms forecast for tonight and more rain and cloud tomorrow. The weather is forecast to change at the end of the week. Could the onset of sunshine and light winds from the south provide ideal conditions for his next move?

On the 18 March Martin remained in Ivory Coast but he has now been joined by Chris, who is around 100km (62 miles) away to the south-east.

 Martin's tag was picked-up at 20.02 on 15 March, which showed him in his previous location in Ivory Coast. He is still the most westerly Cuckoo.

Martin has been taking the 'tourist route' - by 9 March, he had moved south from Mole National Park to Bui Mational Park in western Ghana. Two days later, he had moved 140km (87 miles) west from there to Ivory Coast.  He is currently close to the town of Kamele and is about 80km (50 miles) south of Comoé National Park.

Since Martin's tag suddenly began transmitting on the afternoon of 6 March, we have received several locations that placed him in northern Ghana - although there was some uncertainty (and hence the locations are not shown on the map) we think the last locations received late that afternoon placed him in Mole National Park where the BTO/RSPB/GWS/Naturama 'Migrants in Africa' project worked during 2009-11. This makes him the most northerly Cuckoo of our five at about 9.5 degrees north.

After a silence of 24 days, at three thirty yesterday afternoon we received a location for Martin showing he was in northern Ghana, about 65km north of Tamale!  He had covered around 2,000km (1242 miles) from his location in Congo. This means that all five Cuckoos have now left Congo and are currently on their way back to Britain.

 Twenty-four days ago Martin was in Congo, as we haven't heard from him since then we have to assume that he could still be in Congo. However, as all of our birds have 'disappeared' prior to moving north from Congo, we hope that Martin is doing the same, and wait with baited breath to see where he will pop-up next.

It's now been 18 days since we heard from Martin and 13 days since we heard from Lyster. We aren't worried though as we think they are probably deep under cover feeding up, as Kasper did, perhaps before heading north? This makes it difficult for the solar panels to charge the tag's batteries. Who knows where they will turn up!
 

We have had no signals from Martin's tag since the 11 February. Could it be that Martin is deep undercover feeding up ready to move north as Kasper did? It was exactly a month in which we received no signals from Kasper before he reappeared some 350 miles north of his last known position. We will have to wait to see... 

A transmission received from Martin’s tag on the 30 Jan showed he had moved 90 miles (145km) in a north-north-east direction from Oko, where he had been located, and is now close to the Likouala River. He is around 86 miles from Lyster.

Is this the start of migration or not? Watch this space! 

We received a good location for Martin on the 16th but this is the only message we have received from his tag in the past ten days. Despite the recent sunshine, the tags aren't charging to very high levels suggesting they are spending time under the forest canopy or in other dense vegetation.

After some weak signals we received a stronger  transmission from Martin at 01.07 on 16 January which showed him in the same place as previously, close to the town of Oko, Congo. 
 

We heard from Martin today but this, and the previous three transmissions, have been very weak and so it is hard to say accurately where he is. Hopefully we will get a stronger signal from him soon.

 Martin too is still on the Teke Plateau, transmitting from just west of the village of Oko on 1 January at 18.28.

During the week preceding 16 December Martin moved south from his previous position in southern Central African Republic and settled on the Teke Plateau in Congo, about 90 and 120km from Lyster and Martin respectively. Like them, he is using forest patches with lots of edges in this forest-savannah mosaic.

A message from Martin at 03.13 on 16 December shows that he is now 635km (395miles) south of his previous position. He is now around 80km (50miles) south-east of Lyster, and the fifth of our cuckoos to arrive in Congo.

We received a weak transmission from Martin at 14.49 on Tuesday 6 December that placed him still in the northern Savannah, on the northern edge of the Congo Rainforest.

A transmission received at 04.11 on Sunday 27 November shows Martin still in Central African Republic close to the edge of the Congo rainforest. He has been in this area since the 27 August. It will be interesting to see if he follows the other cuckoos and moves further south during the next few weeks.

We last heard from Martin on the 10 November and transmissions show that he is still in the same location in CAR. We should hear from him in the next couple of days. Will he have moved to join the others in Congo?

Early this afternoon, we received a transmission that showed Martin was still in CAR and is making short flights in the area.

Martin last transmitted on the 29 October at 19.02 and is still in the Central African Republic. He has been here since the 27th September. Chris joined him in CAR for a brief while before moving onwards and is now in the Congo. Will Martin follow the other three Cuckoos in to Congo or continue to reside in nearby CAR for the winter?

Martin is still on the edge of the rainforest in southern Central African Republic.

On 13th October, Martin remained at the edge of the rainforest in southern Central African Republic.   

As of Monday 10 October, Martin was still in southern Central African Republic. His tag is charging less well now that he is in more densely forested habitat with more cloudy weather but we should hear from him tonight. It will be interesting to see if he has followed Chris into the Congo to the south....

Messages received from Martin three days ago showed that he had moved 350km SSE. He is now near the southern border of Central African Republic and close to the edge of the Congo Rainforest, the second largest area of rainforest in the world. Could this be his final winter destination? At this stage we don't really know. Watch this space.

Martin has now been close to the watercourse he initially found in the Central African Republic for three weeks, and has been making short feeding forays along its banks.

Continuing his move south-eastwards, Martin did not hang around the location he had reached on the 25th. We next picked him up in the Central African Republic on the 27th August after having travelled another 250km. He has apparently homed in on another river system (if you zoom into the map you can see the dark line of trees surrounding the watercourse.

Martin remained on the edge of the Chari River floodplain until late on 24 August. A series of locations extending into 25 August showed him leaving the area to the southeast. By 0550hrs he had settled in an area 160km SE of his previous residency.

Martin remains on the edge of the Chari River floodplain and we last heard from him on the morning on Thursday 18th August. After the birds had crossed the Sahara we expected them to rest up for a while and Martin has obviously found a good place as he has been in this region since 26 July.

On Saturday evening (6 August) Martin was still on the edge of the Chari River floodplain. The Chari River provides most of the water flowing into Lake Chad and much of Chad’s population is concentrated around it. The weather today is a balmy 26°C with scattered cloud, however, thunderstorms are expected.

Martin was in the toe of Italy when we last saw him at 16:30 on the 21^st July. We next picked him up at 19:30 on the 23^rd in southern Chad at approximately 15 degrees North whilst on active migration. He carried on migrating through the night and ended up overflying Lake Chad. Our last fix was in northern Nigeria at 04:00 GMT, some 400km away from where we first picked him up. We can not say whether he was still on active migration or not. Since our last fix in Italy some 51 hours earlier, he had covered 2,500 km at an average speed of 49 km h^-1, exactly the same as Chris who in the past two days flew a distance of 2,700 km in 56 hours.

Lake Chad is a well known stopover site for migrants but Martin has decided to go futher. We await his next fix with interest to see whether he has stayed put or is pushing further south.

Having been near Milan since 4 July, Martin has made a dash for it in recent days. Yesterday afternoon (21 July) he was in the “toe” of Italy, about 15km (9 miles) from the Straits of Messina. He appears to be ready to cross over to Sicily and then presumably into Tunisia ready for his desert crossing…

This new location provides interesting evidence about the route Martin will take into Africa. We didn’t hear from Kasper between Rome and southern Algeria – did he too travel the length of Italy before taking this route into Africa?
 

On Saturday afternoon (16 July), Martin remained in the area near Milan that he has been staging in since 4 July. Presumably, he is resting and feeding up in preperation for his journey south.

A poor quality signal received early morning on Thursday 14^th July indicates that Martin is still in the same location approximately 50km (30 miles) SSW of Milan.

Martin remains in the floodplain of the river Po, 50km (30 miles) SSW of Milan, close to the town of Voghera.

Martin, along with Chris, has been the star of the show this past weekend. He surprised us last week by rapidly moving into France on the 30 June, and when we received the next signal, he had joined Clement and Kasper on the edge of the Mediterranean. He turned up in northern Italy in the Ligurian region, 50km west of Genoa, moving approx 430km in the 2 days.

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Martin has left Breydon Water. At 0921hrs this morning (30 June) he popped up in the Auvergne region of central France – having travelled 715km on a heading near to due south since Tuesday. He is now in a landscape of arable and grazing fields with scattered woodlots (see below for photo from streetview) about 100km south-west of where Clement staged in Burgundy.

Accurate fixes received for Martin on Saturday (25 June) evening show he was back precisely at the tagging location – just as we had been informed by Peter Allard on Friday!

The latest fixes for Martin (on Tuesday) were not very accurate but suggest he was probably still in the Runham area. However, this morning Peter Allard saw and photographed a Cuckoo with a satellite tag - back at the place where Martin was tagged adjacent to Breydon Water!

Peter says today is the first time a Cuckoo has been in the area for some time. This (see photo) must surely be Martin –and we await new positions later today that will hopefully tie in with this!

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A BTO Cuckoo was spotted and photographed. In the second photo you can just see the aerial of the tag on the back of the Cuckoo, which is enlarged in picture 3. Photos by Peter Allard.

Early on Sunday (19 June) morning Martin was still close to Runham. As the only adult male amongst our sample of tagged birds, Martin might be expected to remain in the UK looking for mating opportunities longer than the other birds. Watch this space.

By Thursday afternoon, Martin had moved slightly south and was in the area 5km (3 miles) inland from Great Yarmouth, just north of the River Bure near Runham.

Rob Martin reports that on the morning of 7 June he and Daniel Watson found a Cuckoo with a transmitter antenna visible coming from its back in Winterton Dunes. Clearly this was Martin and provides nice confirmation of his stay in the area!

No further accurate positions have been received for Martin but he appears to still be in the area inland of Winterton Dunes, Norfolk, not too far from where the tag was fitted.

Martin has remained in the same area – on Saturday evening he was located at Martham Fen. Perhaps a good area for female Cuckoos on the look out for Reed Warbler nests.

Martin continues to move around the area inland of Winterton Dunes and south of Hickling Broad.

Martin’s stay in Caister was short-lived – by early morning of 7 June he had returned north to the area inland from Winterton Dunes that he had been in previously. He also briefly visited Hickling Broad – he and Kasper appear to now have over-lapping homes ranges.

An interesting sighting of a Cuckoo “with a wire sticking out of its back” near Breydon Water (very close to where we tagged Martin) on 29th May was reported to BTO by Nick Richardson
 

Martin remained in the area next to Breydon Water that he had been tagged in until the morning of 29th May, when he moved 11km north to Winterton Dunes. He remained in this general area, moving up to 6km (4 miles) inland at times, until the morning of Sunday 5th June when he moved back towards his original location and had reached at least as far as Caister-on-Sea.