Updates from our Cuckoos

A series of poor locations on the evening of 22 April show that Bill was in Morocco, having completed his desert crossing. Signals place him in the Atlas Mountains, Morocco again on 27 April and we are concerned that he hasn't moved on northwards during that time as we would expect the Cuckoos to do. The temperature on the tag appears low but we will have to wait for further information to draw any conclusions. The location will only update and show on the map if a good quality signal is received. At the moment it doesn't look too good for Bill.

Since arriving in Ivory Coast on 22 March Bill hasn't moved far from the Komoe River. Hopefully he has been finding lots of food in preparation for his desert crossing.

Bill has flown 526km (327 miles) west during the last few days, leaving Togo and completely overflying Ghana. He is currently in eastern Ivory Coast, close to the Komoe River. 

During the last week Bill has been heading west, he is currently resting up on the banks of the Artie River in Central Togo. It might not be too long before he heads further west and joins our other tagged Cuckoos in the western part of West Africa. This is where most of our Cuckoos have staged before heading north across the desert.

A series of poor quality locations received from Bill's tag during the last couple of weeks suggested that he was heading north out of Gabon, but we had to wait until the early hours of 6 March to confirm this. A good quality location received at 01.30 in the morning showed that he was in south-eastern Nigeria, east of Ekoku.

Signals received on the 8 February show that Bill is still alive and well and has continued north to Gabon. 

A poor quality location received from Bill on 13 January shows that he has moved north into DRC. We will have to wait until we receive better quality locations from his tag to confirm his exact location.

Of the four Cuckoos in Angola, Larry and Bill are now only a few miles apart, after small southwards movement from Bill throughout November. 

Bill has indeed carried on southwards, travelling 620km (385 miles) and leaving Gabon behind, to reach northern Angola by the early hours of 29 October. Since then he has remained in the area of north-eastern Zaire and has been moving around exploring the locality.  

By the 25 October Bill had left his last location in Nigeria and was on the move, heading in a south-easterly direction and passing to the east of Onitsha. Signals on the 26 revealed he had continued onwards, leaving Nigeria, and had made it all the way to Gabon. He is now to the south of Lvindo National Park. Since leaving Nigeria, Bill has flown 1,000km (622 miles) to reach his current location. It is likely that he will move a little further south yet.