Updates from our Cuckoos

The last transmissions received on the 20 July were of an 'unconfirmed' nature but indicate that David remains in Montenegro. He has been here since the 27 June so we might expect him to make a move shortly.

We received a tag transmission from Reacher in Perpignan, France on the 21 July but the next signals on the eve of the 23 July and early on the 24 revealed that Reacher had continued south and into Spain. He travelled around 857km (532 miles) from his previous poistion and was close to Granada in the Sierra Nevada Mountain region in Andulusia.

 Having arrived in northern Italy on 5 July, BB has been settled there ever since. However, a poor location from his tag indicates that he too may have made a bid for Africa. Watch this space!

Having spent most of July in northern Italy, Indy is on the move. Several poor locations received this morning indicate that he is over the Mediterranean Sea, 240km (140 miles) south east of the southern tip of Sicily.

 A series of poor locations received on Sunday morning (22 July) indicate that Mungo has set off from northern Italy and is now in Sicily. We eagerly await his tag’s next ‘on’ period to confirm his location.

On Friday morning (20 July) a location from Wallace showed that he had finally left Scotland and was in the Lake District, 8.5km (5 miles) east of Keswick. Just as it was getting light on Saturday morning he was 5km (3 miles) east of Wigan and just as it was getting light this morning (23 July) he was in France, south west of Montdidier, Picardie, 558km (347 miles) south east of his last stop in the UK. Of all five of the Scottish tagged Cuckoos, Wallace has taken the most westerly route out of the UK.

Since at least Tuesday 17 July, Lyster has been in Catalonia, about 120km (75 miles) west of Barcelona. He is in a flat irrigated agricultural area just east of the town of Lerida. This is approximately 270km ENE of the area east of Madrid that he staged in last August before moving on to Morocco. It will be interesting to see how long he stays here and whether he stops of in Morocco again afterwards.

Having still been in north-eastern France on Wednesday, by first thing this morning John had moved 290km (180 miles) due S. His new location is just west of the south end of the Jura Mountains 32km (20 miles) NNW of Oyonnax and 61k (38 miles) NW of Geneva. As he moves into southern Europe, he leaves Chance (still south of Berlin according to an confirmed location received Thursday – his tag is not charging well and we might expect him to move south soon) and Wallace (still near Troon on Wednesday evening) as our only Cuckoos (excluding Idemili) left in northern Europe.

At just before 2100hrs GMT last night (19 July), Mungo had began moving away from his last transmission area in the Alpine pass to east of Mont Blanc. A series of locations tracked his progress as he migrated through the night over the north-western Italian regions of Piedmont and Liguria before stopping on the coast of Tuscany sometime before 0500 hrs GMT. Despite the lure of this location, we don’t expect Mungo to stay here long – he will probably press on and start his desert crossing in the next few days as we suspect he completed his preparations during the four weeks he spent in the Alps. Mungo progressed by 435km (270 miles) in a south-easterly direction during the night.

Signals received this morning (19 July) indicate that Chris has made good progress and has now almost completed his desert crossing. The signals placed him about 50km (30 miles) north of Lake Chad in Chad. He is quite a way north in an area with low annual rainfall but at this time of year, the area should be experiencing rainfall so hopefully conditions should be quite good for Chris. His location is approximately 300km (185 miles) N of the location that Martin spent some time in after his desert crossing last year, and about 500km (310 miles) NW of where he himself did the same, so we might expect him to continue moving south over the coming days.