Thetford-tagged Frederic appears to be taking it relatively easy, making his way slowly through Spain. Our latest update indicates that he has moved south-west into the Castile and León region and is roughly 100 km (62 miles) north of the capital Madrid. Hopefully he’s finding plenty of food to sustain his long and arduous crossing to North Africa and across the Sahara.  

The first of our tagged birds to reach North Africa, Ashok has ploughed on with zeal, flying across the Sahara and on into Chad, covering over 3,000 km (1,864 miles) in under three days! 

In that time Ashok covered the length of Libya, flew through eastern Niger, and as of 7.26 this morning was in the Sahel region of Chad, having cleared the vast expanse of the Sahara desert.

Our second tagged bird to reach Africa, Arthur took a quite different route to Ashok, travelling west through Spain and down to Morocco. 

He took off just to the west of Cadiz, flying across an expanse of open sea before arriving on the Moroccan coast close to the city of Casablanca. From here he continued south past Marrakesh, toward the borders of Western Sahara and western Algeria. 

Since our last update just two days ago, when Wilfrid was still in central western Spain, he has covered almost 1,500 km (930 miles). He left the Iberian Peninsula close to the Guadiana River mouth on the border of Spain and Portugal, crossed the Gulf of Cadiz and followed the Moroccan coast before heading inland and continuing into Western Sahara. 

As one of our last tagged Cuckoos to leave the UK, he is now the second furthest south!

Wingston, it would seem, has finally tired of the excitement of Montpellier, where he has been since mid-June. This morning, we saw that his latest signal places him mid-way across the Mediterranean, just off the south-west coast of Sardinia. 

If he continues in this direction he will arrive in North Africa close to the Moroccan / Tunisian border shortly. From here he can proceed with the next leg of his remarkable journey – across the Sahara!

We last heard from Cleeve a couple of days ago, when he was on the Belgian / French border. His signal shows that he has made steady progress since then, covering around 900 km (560 miles) on a flight through France and into north-eastern Spain. 

He is currently just west of the Catalonian city of Girona, close to the Zona Volcànica de la Garrotxa Natural Park.

After more than a week in southern France, Cores has now headed east and crossed into the Italian Alps. He is currently in the foothills just 55 km (34 miles) south-west of Turin. 

Will he stay in Italy for a while as he has done in previous years, or will he move on swiftly and take advantage of strong southerly winds to ease his way across the Mediterranean? 

We’d not heard much from Ashok in recent days, and he seemed to be lingering in Suffolk. However, we suddenly received a signal telling us that he had not only left the UK, but had crossed mainland Europe, flown across the Mediterranean via Monaco and Sardinia, and made landfall in Tunisia over the weekend! 

Now in northern Libya, Ashok is the first of our tagged birds to start the next leg of the major migration journey – crossing the Sahara!

Arthur is another of our Cuckoos who seemed quite content hanging around in Suffolk, before suddenly springing into action and heading south. He is already in south-western Spain, more than 1,750 km (1,087 miles) away from where he was tagged at Worlingham Marshes on 31 May. 

Just north of Seville, Arthur is in the wooded hillsides within the Dehesas de Sierra Morena Biosphere Reserve, known for its Iberian Lynx, Black Vultures and Wolves. 

Wilfrid set off in earnest on 1 July, and in just a couple of days had swiftly covered around 800 km (500 miles), making his way from Suffolk to the banks of the Gironde estuary in southwestern France. 

From here he cut across the south-eastern corner of the Bay of Biscay, entering Spain between Bilbao and Santander. He is currently close to Embalse de Valdeobispo, a small lake on the Alagón River in the province of Cáceres.