No further signals have been received for John or Reacher since their last locations in France and Spain respectively. Taking a look back at the temperature data,  the last few messages received for each tag show a lot of variety associated with time of day - i.e. cooler in the early morning and reaching over 30°C in the afternoon. Temperatures prior to that had always been higher than 30°C, even when the Cuckoos were in Britain. This suggests that the bird’s body temperature wasn't influencing the tag's temperature much during these signals and does, unfortunately, support the idea that they may have perished.

 We have concerns about both of these Cuckoos. Mungo was last heard of on 2^nd August in the area north of Lake Chad that he arrived in on 26^th July, soon after completing his desert crossing.  The charge on his tag was very low at that time. Lyster has not been heard of since 8^th August, when he was still in sparse desert in Mauritania, having moved just a few kms in the preceding two days. His tag did not appear to be charging even though it was the middle of the day with very little cover in the area and the charge was very low when transmissions ceased. 

Lyster’s tag failed to transmit on the next 'on' period so we have received no further information about whether he has successfully completed his desert crossing or whether he remains in the desert.  This is a little worrying but, we have gone for long periods without receiving transmissions previously. 

We received several locations for Lyster yesterday (8 August) and all show him in the same part of the desert in Mauritania that he was resident in overnight 5/6 August. The fact that he remains in what appears to be a very barren part of the desert is certainly worrying but the best quality locations received on the morning of 6 August and afternoon of 8 August show that he is definitely moving around the area. Perhaps he has found a surprisingly good food source in the very sparse vegetation in the area? Or perhaps he is too weak to move on? When his tag resumes transmissions tomorrow evening (10 August) we should have a better idea of what is going on with Lyster.

A series of locations spanning the period from the early hours to mid-morning yesterday (Monday 6 July) all placed Lyster in the desert of southern Mauritania. He did not appear to move significantly during this but had progressed 570km (353 miles) SSW from his previous position late on 3 August. We would have expected Lyster to be continuing his migration during the hours of darkness, rather than stopping here, as this location is still a fair way into the desert and there does not appear to be much vegetation in the area. The temperature of his tag did not indicate any cause for concern but we should have more information tomorrow (Wednesday) about how Lyster is faring and whether he has completed the last leg of the desert crossing.

On the afternoon of the 29 July Lyster was still transmitting from Catalonia, around 130 km (80 miles) west of Barcelona. Around 3am on the morning of 1 August we received an unconfirmed location which placed him travelling south over the Balearic Sea and, a matter of hours later, a signal showed that he had made land in Algeria. This last transmission placed him right on the coast, close to Sidi Ghiles, a town and commune in Tipaza Province in northern Algeria. It looks like he travelled around 570km (350 miles).

Locations received do not reveal whether he crossed straight from his position near Barcelona or whether he travelled down through Spain to minimise the sea crossing, or possibly even rested briefly on one of the Balearic Islands as he crossed over.  

We have seen little movement in recent days from the Cuckoos tagged in England, with Lyster remaining in Catalonia, John still near Bayonne, Reacher still in Andalucia (although unconfirmed locations suggest he has moved to the south coast, just east of Malaga) and Chris just north of Lake Chad.

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 been close to Montpellier on 12 July, Lyster was next picked up on the Spanish-French border 15km (9 miles) east of Andorra in the evening of 14 July. Unconfirmed locations (that won’t show on the map) suggested he had continued migrating that night and by the end of the night he was 70km (43 miles) WSW from here in north-eastern Spain. This is confirmation that Lyster is taking the westerly route into Africa through Iberia, as he did last year.

We didn't receive any confirmed locations from the Champagne-Ardenne region, so these points won't show on the map, however, Lyster isn't hanging around and has continued onwards. We have received transmissions from the south coast of France showing that he is currently 21km (13 miles) south of Montpellier. This now makes him one of the most southerly Cuckoos.

On the afternoon of the 7 July we received a transmission from England. Then early yesterday morning (10 July) we received a series of locations with uncertain accuracy all placing him in the Champagne-Ardenne region 25km (15 miles) north of Troyes.

These new points won't show on the map yet, but should update over the next few days as we receive further transmissions to verify the uncertain locations from this morning. The distance between his last location in England and this new location was 490km (303 miles). This means that all our English Cuckoos are now on their way south!

In recent days there has been little movement from the Cuckoos tagged in England. Reacher remains near Perpignan and looks poised to take the westerly route into Africa through Iberia that Clement and Lyster used last year. Chris remains close to Antwerp and is now 24km (15 miles) NE of the city. 115589 is still about 110km (968 miles) east of Reims in northern France, whilst Lyster has repeated the pattern from last year and is the last of the Cuckoos tagged in England still in the country.

Lyster remains in Norfolk and, with 115589's recent movement across the sea to Europe, is the last of our English Cuckoos still in England. Will he be the last to leave again this year? There are still two Scottish birds who also remain in the UK.

Since arriving back in the UK, Lyster has been faithful to the Norfolk Broads area. A location received yesterday showed this still to be the case. He was on the outskirts of Hales, Norfolk. He is currently 20km (14miles) from his 2011 tagging location. He was the last bird to leave the UK in 2011. Will that also be the case this year? Only time will tell.

A transmission from Lyster's tag yesterday shows that he has headed back in the same direction he came from. He has travelled around 15km (10 miles) and is once again close to the River Chet in an area known as Hardley Flood, northeast of Loddon. This area consists of shallow lagoons and reedbeds which act as a spillway for the River Chet.

Lyster's tag last transmitted on the morning of the 5 June and showed that he was close to the village of Hempnall. He has moved around 16km /10 miles from his previous position near Nogdam End.

Lyster continues his tour of the Broads and is now back in the Yare valley. As of yesterday evening he was approximately three-hundred metres north east of Nogdam End and 10km (6.5 miles) south west of Acle.

 As of two days ago Lyster was back in the Broads, just west of Acle. He really is covering a lot of ground, presumably in search of female cuckoos. Anecdotal evidence suggests that females are in short supply at the moment.

 Since arriving back in the UK, Lyster has been anything but laggard. Having covered a large area of the Broads, as of yesterday, he was near to the Norfolk/Suffolk border, 6km (3.7 miles) to the west of Diss. He is now 40km (25 miles) south west of where the BTO/BBC team found him in the Broads.

 At 05.46 this morning, Lyster was in a small patch of woodland on the south east edge of Chedgrave in the Norfolk Broads. He is 16km south of his previous location near Ranworth. It is amazing just how much ground he has covered since he arrived in the Broads.

We had been mildly concerned over the low temperature of Lyster’s tag, at the time we received the one location from south of Paris late on Friday. This, however, gave way to relief yesterday morning when his tag began transmitting again and locations showed he was in Norfolk!  He had moved 530km (330 miles) almost due north since late on Friday.  The sensor data from his tag indicate he was probably actively migrating at the time the Paris location was received.  Since he was last in Algeria (25 April) he has moved approximately 1880km (1170 miles) almost due north in less than 5 days.

Lyster has travelled an amazing 1350km (800 miles) in two days, leapfrogging Chris to take the lead in the race back to the UK!

Lyster first arrived in Algeria on the 13th April, and data transmissions received on the 25th of April showed he had made a move from the date plantation in the desert northwards into the Atlas mountains. A location received late on the 27th showed that Lyster was in France about 115km (70 miles) south of Paris! He took two days to cross the Mediterranean and make it as far as central France, a journey of just over 800 miles.

We are due to receive further news from Lyster today. Could he be the first tagged Cuckoo to return to the UK?

 Lyster remains in Algeria, but over the weekend he made a move nearer to the coast. We received further data from him yesterday (23rd April) showing that he is still on the north African coast. If weather conditions are suitable we may find that the next transmission from Lyster sees him safely back on mainland Europe.

Locations received for Lyster early on the 16 April showed that he was 260km (160 miles) NE of his previous position and only 80km (50 miles) from the Tunisian border. He appears to have settled in a date plantation and has not yet finished his desert crossing. Could bad weather be responsible for this early stop? His tag should transmit again tomorrow morning (18 April) and as the wind is due to drop overnight, he may have moved on by then.

During the afternoon and early evening of 13 April, we received a series of locations for Lyster - the first since 1 April.  They showed that he had emerged from Ghana and had almost completed his desert crossing! As with the three Cuckoos that had preceded him across the desert he was located in northern Algeria, his route having taken him between the paths taken by Chris and Kasper. He was between the Grand Erg Oriental and Occidental deserts and during the eight hour period that the locations spanned, he did not appear to be moving. His tag is due to start transmitting again this evening (Sunday) when we hope to find out how he has fared during the remainder of his mammoth journey across the desert.

As far as we know, Lyster is still in Ghana. The last transmission period should have been yesterday (11 April) and we really would like to see some signs of activity tomorrow. If we do,  he'll be on a much later schedule than other birds, as he was last summer.

We have not heard from Lyster since a transmission on 1 April in Ghana. We have had periods when birds have been 'offline' but we would have hoped to have had a transmission or two in the last 10 days.

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

On 1 April, Lyster remained in the northern part of Digya NP in Ghana. He has been in this area for nearly four weeks now and, although he left the UK later than the other Cuckoos in August, we might expect him to head north soon.

Lyster hasn't moved any further, a transmission on the 24 March shows and he is now the most easterly Cuckoo and the only one remaining in Ghana.  Perhaps we will see further movements from him soon?

Sometime between 17 March and the early hours of this morning (22 March) Lyster moved 20km (12 miles) SSW. This took him over an arm of the Volta and into Digya National Park, a short movement took place at the same time as Kasper’s jump to Côte d’Ivoire. Both of these Cuckoos moved towards higher rainfall areas, albeit in different directions and for different distances. Lyster’s shorter movement was directly towards where more heavily wooded habitat could be found.

Locations received for Lyster on the 17 March showed that he is still settled on the north-west shore of Lake Volta, Ghana.  

 On 14 March at 21.04, Lyster was still on the western shore of Lake Volta, Ghana, and still close to Kasper.

On the 12 March we received a transmission from Lyster's tag which showed that he has remained  on the north-west shore of Lake Volta, just north of Digya National Park, around 25km (16 miles) south of Kasper.

A series of locations received for Lyster yesterday afternoon (7 March) showed that he had continued moving rapidly west and is now just north of Digya National Park in Ghana. He is currently 30km (18 miles) SSW of Kasper's latest location.

Since his last transmission on 16 February, Lyster has travelled 1,190km (740miles) from his last known position in Congo. He is now in Nigeria! A transmission from him at 00.49 on 5 March shows that he is currently in the Niger delta. Lyster is the fourth cuckoo to have begun his long journey back to the UK.

It's now been 13 days since we heard from Lyster and 18 days since we heard from Martin. They may be deep under cover feeding up, as Kasper did, which  makes it difficult for the solar panels to charge the tag's batteries.   Kasper travelled 350 miles during the month in which we received no signals, check back for further updates and to see where they turn up next!  

We received a signal from Lyster on the 16 Feb which showed that he has made no further movements northwards as of yet. With both Kasper and Clement having travelled hundreds of miles north, could Lyster be on the move soon too?

Between a transmission received on the 30 Jan and another on the 1 Feb Lyster had moved 75km (46 miles) north-east and then a further 46km (29m) north-west. At 17.57 on the 1 Feb at he was near Ndzakou having moved a total of around 121km (75miles). He is now 86km (53 miles) from Martin and 47km (30 miles) from Clement.
 

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

Another good strong signal was received for Lyster on the 22 January at 20.38 which showed no change in his movements.

A couple of poor transmissions suggest no movement from Lyster from the area that he has now been in since 8 November.

 We last heard from Lyster on 29 December, a transmission that showed he was still on the Teke Plateau.

Lyster is close to Clement and Martin (who came down from Central African Republic a week ago) on the Teke Plateau, using forest patches in this grassland/forest mosaic.  Despite being the last Cuckoo to leave Britain, Lyster was the second (after Kasper) to reach this far south, and has been there since 8 November. His closest neighbour is Clement – the other Cuckoo who left Europe via Iberia and entered the far western part of the African continent. They are approximately 90km apart – the distance that separates the locations at which they were tagged in East Anglia.

As of 15.00 on 14 December, Lyster was still in Congo, on the edge of cleared rainforest.

A strong transmission from Lyster at 08.50 on Wednesday 7 December shows that he is still around 80km south of Clement in the Congo Rainforest.

Lyster is still in Congo, close to Ewo. He has been in in this area since 8 November. Lyster and Clement were tagged within 80km of each other when they were tagged in East Anglia. Both took the western route around the Mediterranean, and through West Africa to arrive in Congo. Both are now just 82km apart.

Lyster last transmitted on the 10 November and we are expecting another transmission soon. He was still close to Ewo on the 10th.

On the 4 November we received transmissions showing that Lyster was on the move, back-tracking in a northerly direction. He moved around 50km away from the tributary that was nearby, and is now located near Ewo.  If you zoom in on the map you can see this movement more closely.

Lyster has moved further south. He arrived in Congo on 29th October, however, a transmission from him in the early hours of this morning shows that he has moved further into Congo and is now 70km (42miles) further south-east than he was on the 29th. He is just north of Okoyo near to a tributary of the Congo river and is the second Cuckoo to cross the equator.

Having stayed in Gabon for around 3 days, Lyster has moved again. At 4.13am on the 29th October he transmitted from Congo, 12km north-west of Ewo and 300km north-west of Kasper who is also in Congo, along with Chris. He certainly is making up for lost time!

By the 26 October Lyster had left Nigeria and had travelled along the western edge of Cameroon, before heading in to Gabon. He is now in the massive area that is the Congo rainforest. Kasper also stopped in Gabon for four days before moving in to Congo.

Lyster remains in the south-eastern corner of Burkina Faso, very close to the borders with Togo and Benin. He has been at this location since 9 October. 

Lyster is currently in the south-eastern corner of Burkina Faso. He is now only 800km to the west of Kasper and is heading his way. The landscape he is in is one of open woodland. Given the recent rainfall in the area, he should be finding plenty of food. The temperature today is a warm 30°C with sunshine and cloud, with the possibility of thunderstorms in the evening.

Messages received on Monday put Lyster still in Mali. He has now been in this area for fifteen days. 

A message received from Lyster at 06.01 on 13 September, showed he had moved 40km north-east from his previous position, towards the border with Mauritania. However, we received a message from him at 20.53 on 15 September which showed he had re-traced his steps back to the south-west and is now 25km from where he was on the 13th. Maybe on his way north he passed through an area that was more suitable than the one he arrived in and decided to head back there.
His local weather today is sunny and dry with a light south-westerly wind and a temperature of 25°C.
 

We received a transmission from Lyster at 05.00 yesterday morning. He is now 2km south-east of Sirakoro in Mali, 470km from his last position in Senegal. He appears to be following in Clement’s footsteps, heading east towards the other four cuckoos. The landscape around Sirakoro is mostly a mosaic of cropland, forest and sub-tropical steppe.
The weather today is dry and sunny with a chance of thunderstorms later, and a hot 30°C. The next few days will be cloudy with some heavy thunderstorms.
Clement moved east fairly quickly to join the other cuckoos, it will be interesting to see if Lyster does the same.

After successfully crossing the desert and appearing in Senegal on the 24th, we again picked up Lyster in the same location on the 27th but at c. 9pm on the evening of the 29th, he transmitted at a location just to the north. Over the course of that evening and into the morning of the 30th, he had moved northwards over the great Senegal river plain and by 3am was in what looks like a temporary watercourse some 75km away in Mauritania. Quite why he moved northwards, we don’t know but maybe he is looking for better foraging conditions.

We were a little worried as Lysters tag failed to transmit on the 22nd August but today it burst into life. His new location showed that he had crossed the desert and was in northern Senegal. Now that he has become the fifth of our tracked Cuckoos to successfully cross the Sahara, we will be following his next moves closely, in particular to see whether he follows Clement back east towards the other Cuckoos or spends a longer period in West Africa.

Lyster is still on the coast of Morocco 20km from Casablanca. A series of locations received between Saturday morning (13 August) and 18 August showed he has been stopping over in an area centred on some artificial pools just outside the town of Had Soualem. He has now been there for over a week and is the first of our Cuckoos to have undertaken a stop-over in North Africa.

We were expecting another update from Lyster’s tag first thing this morning. In fact, however, his tag has deviated from its designated transmission cycle for some reason (it could have been re-set by a magnetic field such as that from overhead power-lines), and we received updates for him yesterday afternoon (10 August). He was close to the Atlantic Coast of Morocco, about 20km (12 miles) SW of Casablanca. His route appears to have taken him directly across the Straits of Gibraltar, although of course we do not know precisely what route he took between his current and previous locations whilst his tag was not transmitting. The last message we received was at 2240hrs when he was still in the same place, so he does not appear to have started his desert crossing last night.

Lyster is the second Cuckoo, following Clement, to have taken the unexpected south-western route into Africa. Fascinatingly, he has taken an even more westerly route than his predecessor, having gone around the northern side of the Atlas Mountains and along the Atlantic Coast. There are many oases along the coast to the south of here and if he continues to take the coastal route, like we know many of our small migrants heading into West Africa, such as the Nightingale we tracked from Norfolk with a geolocator do, he will be minimising his desert crossing and the amount of inhospitable land he has to cross. This seems to make sense – what was more surprising to us was that the likes of Kasper, Clement and Chris crossed the desert at or close to its widest point. Mike Beer, who has driven through many of these areas, reports that the Hoggar and Tibesti areas, that were included in the parts of the Sahara these birds traversed, are in fact not as inhospitable as the sand deserts around them, and in places there may even be small pools and dew points with tiny bushes.
 

Although his tag is not charging well and we are receiving very few good quality locations (as was the case with the other Cuckoos whilst they were at their stop-overs in southern Europe), on Saturday (6 August) Lyster was still in the Parque Naturel del Alto Tajo area. He had been there for just over a week at that time – his tag is due to transmit again this evening when we may get an update if it is charged sufficiently. He is experiencing a pleasant 22°C and bright sunshine.

Stop press! Three signals recieved last night, before his tags charge was depleted, showed Lyster on the move. He has headed off from the Madrid area in a SSW direction, apparently heading towards Gibraltar, by Thursday morning, when his tag is due to transmit again, he could be in Africa. Watch this space!

After being in the same place at Reedham in the east of England, we were seriously beginning to wonder if Lyster was OK, or whether he had died and the tag was lying in the open and still transmitting!

Our first indication of any movement was at 23:37 on the 22^nd July. Earlier in the day he was still at Reedham, but this was a poor fix and at the time we thought that this was a spurious point. However on reflection this fix, which put him over the sea just to the east of London, was probably true and we think he left Norfolk that evening.

We next pick up his story on the 25 July at 08:30 in the Limousin region of central France, approximately 30km SW of Limoges. As with the other Cuckoos he is staging in a region of mixed farmland and woodland. He does not appear to be migrating and may stay here a few days before moving on again. He has taken the most westerly movement out of the UK of any of the five Cuckoos so far. Will he join Clement by going through Spain into West Africa or follow the remaining three to Italy and then down into Central Africa?

Lyster is still languishing in Norfolk. Having remained so long on the breeding grounds, it will be interesting to see whether he compensates with a fast migration when he finally leaves.

Lyster's tag  has just started up and shows he is in the vicinity of Reedham, making the most of the breeding season.

A location received in the early hours of this morning (13 July) placed Lyster very close to Reedham. Surely he must be nearly ready to join the other Cuckoos on migration?

Lyster remains in Broadland and a good quality fix on 2 July put him just to the north of Raveningham. He is the last remaining tagged Cuckoo left in the UK.

On Tuesday afternoon, Lyster was spending time on the Loddon side of the Yare valley – several accurate locations in the evening place him adjacent to Hardley floods.

Lyster is still in the Reedham area – however, he is now also spending some time about 5km (3 miles) to the south-west at Hardley Marshes near Loddon. We had accurate fixes for him there late last week and on Sunday evening Andy Jarrett reported a sighting of him here.

On Tuesday (21 June) afternoon Lyster was still in the Reedham area.

On Sunday (19 June) Lyster was still close to Reedham. Lyster is the last of the one year old males remaining in the breeding area. Will he be the next to leave?

On Thursday afternoon, Lyster was still close to Reedham.

Lyster remains in the same area that he has been frequenting - the most accurate recent position received puts him close to the village of Freehope.

Lyster has remained in the area between Reedham, Cantley and Halvergate – although in the early evening of Saturday (11 June) he made another one of his brief trips, this time 15km (9 miles) south-west to the area around Brooke.

Lyster remains in the area just north of Reedham although on Thursday morning he made a brief excursion down the Waveney valley to near Haddiscoe.

Lyster remains in the Reedham area – on Monday night he roosted in a small wood 1.7km (1 mile) north of the village.

Soon after being caught and tagged, Lyster moved off 12km (7.5 miles) south-west to the vicinity of Lingwood. He remained in this general area for a week, although he made an excursion 10km (6 miles) away to the south-east outskirts of Norwich on 1st June (but was back by the evening).

On the evening of 3rd June, he roosted very close to Reedham in the Yare Valley, 18km (11 miles) south of the tagging location.