Updates from our Cuckoos

Having conquered the Sahara by the end of August, Henry spent the last few weeks slowly making his way south. He currently seems settled in the Central African Republic, approximately 210 km (130 miles) north of the capital Bangui.

We are pleased to report that further updates from Henry's tag show that he has succesfully completed his desert crossing and is now in the Sahel, where he should be able to refuel and recover.

His journey south across the Sahara took him to the west of the Tibesti Mountains of northern Chad to his current location in the Kanem region of south-western Chad.

He is close to one of the thousands of smaller water bodies associated with the massive Lake Chad wetland ecosystem. 

Henry has departed Croatia and crossed the Mediterranean to Libya.

During Monday evening and the early hours of Tuesday morning he travelled south through the Libyan Sahara and by 8 am on Tuesday he was 140 km (87 miles) south west of Wam an Namus, a volcano in south-central Libya.

We received a cluster of locations spread over a few hours which could suggest that Henry has stopped in the desert. This would not be a good sign as the location he is in appears to have little in the way of water or shelter.

Hopefully when we next hear from him he will have progressed south into Niger or Chad. Fingers crossed for Henry!  

Henry has been busy over the last 48 hours, pressing on from his last location in the Czech Republic.

He has passed over Austria, Slovenia and Bosnia & Herzegovina on a journey covering 830 km (515 miles) that has taken him to his new location in Croatia. He has reached the Pelješac peninsula in the far south of Croatia, and is approximately 50 km (30 miles) north-west of Dubrovnik.

Worcestershire Cuckoo Severn is in Kosovo, 175 miles due east of Henry, while Irish Cuckoo Torc is 195 miles south-east in Albania.

After his unexpected move to northern Germany, where he has spent the last few weeks, Henry is finally on the move again.

He has flown 540 km (336 miles) south-east to the Czech Republic. It'll be interesting to see whether he stops here or carries on south.

Henry, if the satellite information is accurate (and there’s no reason for us to assume that it isn’t), is behaving rather oddly… following his 12-day stay just to the south-west of Paris, he finally set off, but instead of heading south he took off to the north, towards Germany!

Two days ago he passed Cologne and continued to fly northwards. He then bypassed Bremen and cracked on towards Hamburg, before veering west, and at 7.56 this morning (24) we received a signal to say that he was just north of the North Sea port city of Bremerhaven!   

In summary, Henry appears to have flown approximately 960 km (596 miles) in the wrong direction. Hopefully, he will soon reorientate and head south after his surprising German tour.

Since our last update, Henry has left West Sussex and flown a distance of 300 km (186 miles), taking him to the Eure-et-Loir department in northern France, approximately 65 km (40 miles) to the south-west of Paris.

Henry left the Montrose area rather swiftly, and headed straight down into north-east England. From here he continued on to West Sussex, in a journey covering around 680 km (422 miles).   

He is currently just 8 km (5 miles) west of London Gatwick Airport.

The first of our 2024-tagged Scottish Cuckoos has made a move!

Henry has left his summer Highland residency in Ross and Cromarty, and has flown over 200 km (124 miles) south-east to the North Sea coast.

Currently just north of Montrose, it will be interesting to see where he heads from here – will he follow the coastline down through Edinburgh and into the Borders or will he head due south over open water, past the outer Firth of Forth, into north-east England?