Updates from our Cuckoos

We regret to announce the death of Clement the Cuckoo, last heard from in Cameroon on 25 February. Temperature data transmitted at the time via satellite suggested that he was no longer alive and we must now assume that he will not be returning to Norfolk for the summer. The other four Cuckoos are in The Ivory Coast and Ghana.

It is amazingly fortunate that all five Cuckoos survived as long as they did. Interestingly, the only information we had about a ringed Cuckoo in Africa, prior to this winter, was of a bird of exactly the same age as Clement that was killed by man (presumably for the pot) in Lembe in Cameroon (just 100 miles due north of Clement's last position) on 30th January 1930. Read more about how Clement has helped to advance our knowledge of Cuckoo migration.

Still no transmissions from Clement's tag.

 It has now been 23 days since we last heard from Clement, and whilst we are getting concerned about him, this is still not the longest gap that we have had between transmissions from our cuckoos.

We haven't received any signals from Clement's tag since 22 February when he ventured in to Cameroon. He was the second Cuckoo to leave Congo but has since been left behind by all of the others as they moved west– he is the only one still in the eastern hemisphere! We have of course had many periods longer than this when we have not received transmissions from some of the Cuckoo’s tags but we are now concerned for Clement as we would have expected him to continue his movement westwards, towards where the other Cuckoos are, by now.

We have received no recent signals from Clement. His last position in Cameroon was further south and east than any of the other Cuckoos currently are - we expect him to move off in a north-westerly direction soon, when his tag should spring to life....

 We haven't heard from Clement for over ten days and must assume that he is still in southern Cameroon, feeding in deep cover in preparation for his next push north.

A transmission on 22 Feb at 19.55 shows that Clement remains in the same location in the south of Cameroon.

No longer the most southerly Cuckoo, we received a transmission from Clement's tag at 9.35 today that showed that he had moved 450km north-west and is now in Cameroon. This is the second large northwards movement that we have seen from one of our Cuckoos, with Kasper having moved north-west into Nigeria. It is an exciting time as the birds start their migration back to Europe.

The cloud cleared and we received a good location for Clement on 22 January which showed no change from his previous location in Congo.