David has remained in the Parc National De La Salonga Nord. In previous years he has headed south only a little further, into the Parc National De La Salonga Sud, before then starting his northward journey again in January or February.

The last few days have been a tense time for us here at the BTO. David has been attempting his desert crossing and for a while it looked like he might be in trouble. He left Montenegro during the evening of 17 August and we heard nothing more from his tag until a poor quality signal on 22 August put him in the Sudan desert, 700km (400 miles) short of a successful crossing, but around mid-afternoon on 24 August a series of good quality signals showed that he has successfully crossed the desert.

In doing so, David has become our most successful tagged Cuckoo. If he makes it back to his wintering location in the Congo rainforest, he will have completed four and-a-half migrations to and from Africa. We all have our fingers crossed that he makes it.

During the early morning of 21 June we received a couple of locations from David's tag that showed he was on his way back to Africa. Despite having to dodge some pretty heavy rainfall, he headed down to the New Forest, Hampshire and probably left the UK via the Isle of Wight. He is currently in northern France just south west of Dreux, and 526km (326 miles) south east of his breeding site atTregaron.

With the summer nearing its end for our Cuckoos, in the past five years several of our tagged Cuckoos have left the UK during early June, it is good to see that David is still moving around the area close to Tregaron and his tagging site. Around mid-morning on 14 June he was 3.25km (2 miles) northwest of Garthynty.

David is back at Tregaron! A series if signals received during the early morning of 3 May show that David is back at his tagging site, completing four whole migration cycles since he was fitted with his tag and equalling the amazing feat of Chris the Cuckoo, whilst providing a huge amount of information on Welsh Cuckoos.The signals were received too early for the map to update but this will happen on 4 May.

A single location received from David's tag around breakfast time on 26 April showed that he was in northern Spain. He is in an area of farmland on the southern edge of the Cantabrian Mountains, 88km (54 miles) from the Biscay coast. Go David!

It looks like David left Guinea on 12 April and headed north across the western edge of the Sahara. Several poor quality locations received on 14 April placed him in northern Mauritania, pretty much in the middle of his Saharan crossing. During the early morning of 17 April, we received confirmation via a good quality location, that he had successfully crossed the desert, and the western Mediterranean, and was in the Sierra Morena Mountains in southern Spain.

On the face of it, it looks like David is still in Nigeria, but a series of poor locations received between 1 and 3 April show that he is most likely in Sierra Leone, 2,282km (1,418 miles) west of his location shown on the map. We will have to wait for a good quality location to confirm this but we think it will show him in northern Sierra Leone, close to the border with Guinea. This will put him further west than any of our other tagged Cuckoos.

David has left the Central African Republic and is on his way back. During the evening of 22 March we recieved a good location from David's tag that showed he had overflown Cameroon and was in southern Nigeria, close to the Cross River. He is 900km (560 miles) west of his last stopover.

Locations received from David during the evening of 15 March show that he has moved north, flying 445km (276 miles) into the Central African Republic. He is currently in the same area as two other satellite tagged Cuckoos, Disco Tony and Larry. There has been recent rain in the area and there might be a good source of food that all three of them have homed in on. All three could head west any day now and join Peckham, Stanley, Coo and Vigilamus at the West African stopover.

Since popping back up we have heard very little from David. It might be that he has moved into deep cover in preparation for the next leg of his journey. In common with several other of our tagged Cuckoos, the next time we hear from him he could be in West Africa.

We were getting slightly concerned about not hearing from David since mid-January. However, after six weeks he has popped back up. He is still in DRC but has moved 242km (150 miles) northwest from his mid-winter location and is now pretty much in the middle of the rainforest.

We haven't heard anything from David since mid-December when he was located in southern DRC. We are not too concerned at this stage as Cuckoos often go missing for a few weeks only to pop up again. Hopefully, David is feeding up in preparation for a northward movement.

David is still in DRC but has moved 228km (141 miles) south within the rainforest. Larry is the only tagged Cuckoo further south than David.

A location received from David during the afternoon of 27 October showed that he was still settled in the area of the rainfrest in DRC that he arrived in on 13 October.

David has continued his journey south, travelling 600 miles south from his last position in the Central African Republic to the northern part of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. In previous years he has wintered about 500 miles further south so we expect him to make another journey before reaching his final wintering areas.

David has made a move south from Chad and into Central African Republic, travelling 215km (130 miles).  

By evening on the 26 August, David was on his way south from Montenegro and by the early hours of the 29 August he had covered 1865km (1160 miles) and was transmitting from Libya. The latest signals, received yesterday, show that he had almost completed his desert crossing and had made it to Central Chad. Larry, Disco Tony, Coo and Vigilamus are all just a little further south within Chad. In previous years he has made it to Africa much earlier, on the 4 and 15 of August, although in 2013 we received transmissions on the 25 August. 

David is on the path south not too far from his last position in Bosnia. He flew 210 kilometres (130 miles), returning once again to western Montenegro, as in previous years, and resting near the Lovcen National Park.  The earliest we have received transmissions from Africa from David's tag in the other years of the project is the 4 August and the latest the 25 August so we expect that he will spend a few weeks in the area, unless he is already well-fueled for the journey.  

David didn’t spend long in the Po Valley before moving on.  Low quality signals received on the 25 July show he had already moved on further eastwards with a good quality signal on 28 confirming that he was in the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina.  Last year his tag also transmitted a location from here, though he arrived earlier in July, before moving to Montenegro, a country he has visited each year since 2012, a week later.  He appears to be a bit behind schedule this year so it will be interesting to see how long he spends here and whether he continues to Montenegro before making his crossing to Africa.

By 23 July, David had left France and travelled east to Italy and the Po Valley.

David has left Wales, and disregarding Chester whose current location is unknown, he is the last of our tagged Cuckoos to depart from the UK. He has travelled over 910km (560 miles) to northern France. 

David is one of four out of eighteen Cuckoos that we are following this year that is still in the UK. Last year he left Wales for France on 1 July, so, he could leave any day now.

David is back at his breeding site near Tregaron in Wales, completing his third complete migration with his satellite tag since 2012. He arived on 28 April, at least two weeks earlier than in 2014 and a week earlier than in 2013. 

David has moved a little closer to the UK and is now in northern France, poised to make his return! 

Transmissions received yesterday show that David has completed his Sahara crossing and made it to Spain, completing a 3350km (2,000 mile) journey from his last location in Siera Leone on 7 April. He is now in the Extremadura region.

In the first year we tracked David (2012/13) he returned to the UK on 27 April but due to cold and wet conditions turned around and retreated to France, returning again on 9 May when conditions had imprvoed. In 2013/14 he arived in Spain much later on 28 April and didn't return to the UK until the 14 May. What will he do this year, especially given his earlier than normal return date to Spain?  

On the evening of 26 March a transmission received from David showed that he was on the move again and had travelled 650km (400 miles) further west. He is now in Sierra Leone, close to the border with Guinea. 

In both previous years he has also set off on his desert crossing from Sierra Leone but in both cases he arrived there in the first week of April. In 2013 he started his desert crossing on 15 April and headed to Mauritania while in 2014 he left on the 17 April but went slightly further west still, to Senegal, and then on to Morocco. 

Given his earlier movement this year, could he be the first Cuckoo to turn north and head home?

At 04.28 on 22 March David was still in Cameroon but by 14.59 on 24 March he had moved 1923km (1195 miles) west, and was in Ivory Coast, just north of Bouake. He covered this distance in 45.5 hours, averaging a speed of 42km per hour (26 mph). It will be interesting to see how long he stays where he is to allow him to recover after such a mammoth journey.

David has moved west, leaving Central African Republic (CAR) behind and travelling 515km (320 miles) south-west to Cameroon. This is very similar timing to last year when he made the move from CAR to Cameroon on 13 March, before then moving to Mali by the end of March. Will he do the same again this year? 

David has left Lake Mai and travelled 380km (235 miles) north to an area close to the Congo River and just above the equator. 

There have been a few small movements recently. Fred and Jake have moved west into Congo whilst David has moved into the area that Emsworthy has left. 

These are likely down to changing rainfall conditions which may affect food availability and cause the Cuckoos to seek areas which may be more plentiful in resources. It will be especially important to find a good feeding area before they make any move northwards. There's no consistent direction in which these Cuckoos leave an area and one Cuckoo may move from an area only to be replaced by another moving in from elsewhere, with no obvious reason why.

On the 23 January we received transmissions from David's tag showing he had moved 200km (125 miles) north to Lake Mai, an area recently vacated by Emsworthy, who has travelled further north.  

Since arriving in the Democratic Republic of Congo, David has moved further south and is now on the southern edge of the rainforest. We last heard from in at 23.48 on 18 December.

David was still in Chad on 21 September but by the evening of the 23 September he had travelled 1085km (675 miles) south to the Congo rainforest in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Six of the tracked cuckoos (Peter, Dudley, Emsworthy, David, Livingstone and Stanley) are already within the Congo rainforest block. The first of these to arrive was Stanley on 16 September, the earliest of the tracked cuckoos ever to arrive there by 12 days! He was followed by Emsworthy on 19 and Livingstone and Dudley on 23. Previous to this year, the earliest Cuckoo had been Chris, who arrived there on 25 September in 2012.

Since then, David arrived on 24 and Peter on 28 September 2014. David was five and four days earlier than in 2012 and 2013 respectively whilst Livingstone was 13 days earlier than last year. It is very interesting to note that all four of the cuckoos who beat the previous earliest arrival date came from northern Cameroon and the adjacent part of Chad, a region that has received over 50mm less rainfall than usual over the past month and more than 100mm less over the past three months.

With most cuckoos now in the Sahel region, we're entering a fairly quiet period in the annual cycle of the tagged cuckoos with less movement than during the migration season.

Birds who completed their desert crossing will spend time in the Sahel recovering their body condition, and some may stay quite a long time. In previous years, cuckoos have stayed in this area for as much as several months, while others spend a shorter amount of time before moving south into the humid zone forests.

The eastern Sahel in Chad and south Sudan has received plenty of rain recently, and thus conditions are likely good for cuckoos. Northern Cameroon was slightly drier than average in August, and so cuckoos such as Derek, Dudley, Stanley, and Emsworthy may be moving on if foraging conditions aren't suitable.

From Montenegro it appears that David then travelled down to Greece and made his crossing to Libya, Africa from here. Poor quality signals on the 4 August show him travelling through the Libyan desert and by the early hours of 9 August he had completed his crossing and made it safely to southern Chad. 

We are still following twenty-two birds. Currently two cuckoos are in France – Walpole and unnamed cuckoo 134957.

Five birds are in and around the Po Valley in northern Italy – BB, Chris, Stanley, Waller and Livingstone.

Six birds are in Spain – Two of these are big movers this week. After finally leaving the UK, Derek hasn’t hung around. After a brief stop in central-western France, he is now in central-northern Spain, just south of Tolbanos de Abajo. It is Maji that has provided the biggest surprise though. He seems to be taking a tour of the European mountain ranges. Having spent a time in the Austrian Alps, he is now in the central Pyrenees!

David is still in Montenegro and Ash is still in Croatia; both of these birds could make the move to Africa any day now.

We now have seven birds in Africa, six of them south of the Sahara. Emsworthy is the latest to arrive here and he is currently just south of Lake Chad, in an area that Chris also favours. Three other Cuckoos – Peter, Hennah and Dudley – are also close to Lake Chad.

The last signal David's tag sent from Wales was on the 28 June and by the evening of 30 June he was in the Champagne-Ardenne region of France. This is spot on with the timing of last year when he transmitted outside of the UK on 30 June but from Central, rather than northern, France. Interestingly, in the first year we tagged David he left much earlier and headed to Germany. Despite this, both years so far he has then headed across to Montenegro to make his crossing to Africa. 

With three un-named birds left we are letting you choose what to name one of our Sherwood Cuckoos!  Anyone who sponsors a Cuckoo before the end of June will be entered in to a draw. We’ll then pick one entry at random and will contact the winner who can then suggest a suitable name*. Find out how you could name a Cuckoo. 

By the evening of 13 May David was back in Wales! He left his last location in France sometime after the 9 May, making the 660km (410 miles) journey back to Tregaron, the area in which he was first tagged.

Last year, in spring 2013, he first returned to the UK much earlier, around 26 April but promptly turned tail and returned to France - no doubt  influenced by the cool daytime weather and falling evening temperatures at Sherborne, and by the general lack of advancement of the spring due to the unseasonably cold weather earlier on in March and April.  Having spent a few weeks there, he was back in the UK by the 6 May and at his tagging site by 9 May. 

It's interesting that despite much warmer daytime temperatures in the last few weeks, David has chosen to leave it even later than last year. Perhaps using his previous experience to ensure that he doesn't make the same mistake again. This choice however may mean that he finds it harder to find a mate, as other Cuckoos who have arrived earlier will have taken the best territories.  

By the 27 April, David had travelled to Spain and was just north of the Sierra Nevada Mountains having travelled 460km (285 miles) from his last location in Morocco.

David has crossed the desert from his very westerly position near Dakar. Signals received on the late afternoon of  18 April showed he was mid-crossing, 1560km (990 miles) from his previous location, and in Morocco in the southern half of the region of Guelmin-Es Semara which forms part of the Western Sahara.  He continued on a further 1000km (624 miles) and by evening on 20 April he was in northern Morocco in the Middle Atlas, part of the Atlas mountain range. 

David has headed 650km (410 miles) north-west and is now close to Dakar in Western Senegal.  Last year he embarked on his desert crossing from his location on the border of Guinea/Sierra-Leone but, despite having headed to the same spot on the border again this year, he has instead travelled west rather than north. On 15 April last year he was crossing the desert and was over Mauritania so he seems a little delayed this year. It will be interesting to see where he heads to next.

If David does cross the desert from his current location, he will be over 1780km (1100 miles) further west than the point at which BB made his desert crossing from! 

Despite Patch's recent westerly movement to Guinea, David may still be the most westerly Cuckoo. Poor quality signals suggest that David continued on from Mali and could be in either Sierra Leone or Guinea. Last year, he was in a very similar location, almost on the Guinea/Sierra Leone border by the 8 April. This was preceeded by a couple of weeks of silence so we can't tell whether he is on schedule or ahead of last year.  We will have to await further signals to confirm his current location and update the map positions.  

David has made a massive most to the west, leaving Cameroon behind and travelling at least 2420km (1500 miles) to a location in Mali by early evening of 28 March. 

David has travelled only a small distance since he made the jump across the Congo rainforest block at the end of January. Having been in the location for 25 days now we expect that he has been feeding up and resting, ready to make the next move west along the edge of the forest. By this time last year he was 400km (250 miles) further west,  he then continued to move west over the next month and in late March, made a big move to Ghana. Will he do the same this year? If so we might expect a further westerly movement any time.  

Signals received today show that David has now crossed into the Central African Republic, after a further journey of 420km (260 miles), and is clear of the block of more or less continuous closed canopy forest of the Congo Rainforest.

He is on a very similar schedule to last year, when he arrived at this location around the 28 January. He then spent almost 2 months moving along the edge of the forest block line before making a huge jump, at the end of March and into early April, to the western part of West Africa. This was quite unusual compared to the other Cuckoos who stopped over in one or two countries as they made their way west rather than apparently attempting it in one jump.

The last signal we received from David was on 16 December so we were relieved to see that he was once again on the move and that his tag was still transmitting. From his last position within the Salong National park, he had moved 375km (230 miles) north and was close to the equator. By the 27 January he had continued a further 160km (100 miles) north. This new move means he is one of the most northerly Cuckoos currently.

We last heard from David seventeen days ago from the Congo Rainforest. Whilst we are a little anxious about him the last transmission showed that the tag temperature was as expected. His battery charge was extremely low and his tag will have stopped transmitting soon afterwards. We are hoping that if he moves into some sunshine that his tag will begin transmitting again.

David, Patch, Waller and Whortle are all still in the Democratic Republic of Congo and all the tags have transmitted within the last few weeks. Patch and Waller are still close to the shores of Lake Mai while Whortle is a little further north,  

David, our one remaining Welsh tagged Cuckoo, has gone the longest without transmitting, with the last signal received just over a week ago on 16 December. This year David is a little ahead of schedule, having spent Christmas further north in the swamp forests in 2012 and moving a few days after to the area he is now in, just north of the Salonga National Park and close to a tributary of the Congo River. 

David has moved from the south area of Salonga National Park north-east to the north section of the park, a journey of 130km (80 miles). The park is Africa's largest tropical rainforest reserveand is largely accessible only via river.

David is still in the area of the Salonga National Park from which his tag transmitted from on 5 October. On 24 October last year he was slightly further south, en route to his most southerly location a further 100miles south, where he spent December 2012.  

Currently David, Tor and Patch are all at a similar latitude and our the most southerly of the tagged Cuckoos. 

From his position on the 28 September, David had travelled 735km (450 miles) south by the afternoon of the 5 October and was in the Salong National Park. He was roughly 160km (100 miles) north of the area he arrived in on 24 October 2012 and spent the winter in last year.  This wintering location is one of the furthest south we have seen from our Cuckoos since the beginning of the project. Only Kasper from the first year of the project and Lloyd from last year have also travelled as far south as David to overwinter. 

David is now 749km (465 miles) south west of his last position in South Sudan. Having moved east of the Chaine Des Mongos mountains as he did last year, David has now over-flown the Central African Republic and he is now 100km south of its border in the Orientale region of the Democratic Republic of Congo. He is on a very similar path to last year and we would expect him to continue another 800km (500 miles) south-west to spend the mid-winter period in the same general area that he did then. 

On the 3 September, David was still in northern Central African Republic but by late afternoon on 5 September, he had travelled eastwards 470km (290 miles) to Sudan. This mirrors his movement last year when he moved from his position which was slightly further north, in Chad, and was in Sudan by 16 September. This surprised us as, at the time, as he was already much further east than many of the other Cuckoos. It’s really interesting that he has once again moved further east and to an area very close to that he used last year. 

Signals show that from his position in Sudan, David changed course and began to head in a south-westerly direction. By yesterday lunch time he was in the very north of the Central African Republic, having successfully completed his desert crossing. He is about 100km (60 miles) north of the Aouk Aoukale Faunal Reserve.

From Greece on the evening of the 22 August, David has crossed the Mediterranean Sea and by the morning of 25 August, his tag transmitted from the North Kudafan region of Sudan – 2680km (1660 miles) further south from his previous location!  This places him in the desert and he will have roughly another 450km (280 miles) to go before completing his crossing. His most recent movement is very similar to last years journey, although he has made the trip across Sudan further to the east. To see this, view David's map and choose 2012 from the drop down options above - this will show both last year's route and that taken so far this year. 

On the evening of 22 August, transmissions from David’s tag revealed that he had left his location in Montenegro and travelled 470km (290 miles) south. At that time he was near the Greek islet, Apasa, to the east of Ithaca, one of the Ionian Islands in Greece.  A further poor quality signal 40 mins later shows him south of Petalas, the largest island of the Echinades, among the Ionian Islands. 

David is still in the south-east of Montenegro and has yet to make his move to Africa. He remains close to the Scutari Lake which spans both Montenegro and Albania and his current position is only 20km (12 miles) from the border with Albania. We expect him to make a move in the next couple of weeks.  

David’s tag is still currently transmitting from a location in Montenegro where he has been since 15 July. In 2012, David arrived in Montenegro earlier, on 27 June, and remained in the area for around 6 weeks, before transmitting from Africa on 15 August.   It will be interesting to see whether he spends a similar amount of time in Montenegro this year, or whether he times his movement for a similar arrival date in Africa this year.  The last transmission received was a couple of days ago. Could he be on his way now?

From his position in France on 14 July, David has now journeyed east 1010km (630miles), travelling across Italy and the Adriatic Sea to Montenegro. He was the first Cuckoo we recorded in Montenegro last year, arriving there on 27 June 2012 via Germany. Roy, one of the Cuckoos tagged in Scotland, also made a stop here on 10 August. It is interesting to note that David has ended up here again this year, having travelled south to France and then east, rather than east first and into Germany first as last year. As his first stop when he left Devon was very close to the area in France he visited in the spring, while he was waiting for conditions in the UK to get better after his reverse migration, he could have learnt a new route from this previous experience. 

David has been a little busy since his last transmission, moving south and east into northern Italy to the general area in which quite a few of our birds have had a stopover. However, he only stayed here for two days before heading south-west into France. He is now 5km (3.5 miles) north-west of Pierlas in the southern French Alps. This movement mirrors that made by Whortle, one of the Dartmoor Cuckoos, and it might be that the feeding in the area of Northern Italy they were in wasn’t very good and they have both moved to find food, in Whortle’s case, retracing his steps to the last good supply.

Two days after what was to be David’s tag’s last transmission from Wales, new locations on the 30 June show that he was the ninth bird to leave the UK.  The first of the transmissions shows that he also chose to make his first stop in France near Burgundy, while a second transmission showed he moved a further 12km (7 miles) southwest and was in the Auvergne region, to the north-west of Moulins. His journey of 900km (560 miles) has taken him to a location that is just over 100km (60 miles) from Livingstone’s location near Roanne. 

David remains in the area around Tregaron and Llandewi-Brefi that he was tagged in last summer. 

Transmissions from the last few days show that all four Cuckoos which have returned to their breeding grounds are still in their respective areas. They are likely to remain in and around these areas looking for breeding opportunities for at least the next month.We now assume Lloyd has perished in Morocco as there is no reason for him to remain in his current position for so long. Last year, the earliest Cuckoo to leave the UK was Chris, on the 11 June, while David and BB left on 18 and Chance on the 22 June. Wallace, one of the birds tagged in Scotland last year, was the last to leave, transmitting from outside the UK on 23 July, just one day later than the last bird, Lyster, in 2011. 

As suspected, David has moved on quickly from his position on the south coast and transmissions received early this morning show that he is back at Tregaron, the site where he was originally tagged. He is the only tagged male Welsh Cuckoo to have made it back. There are concerns for our other Welsh bird, Lloyd, who also wintered in the Democratic Republic of Congo as transmissions show he has not continued on from Morocco. 

David was still in the Centre region of France on 2 May but by the evening of 6 May he had covered 345km (215 miles) and was on the north coast of France, close to Cherbourg. Three hours later and he had covered around 114 km (71 miles) across the English Channel and was 40km (25 miles) south of Bournemouth. Shortly after this, further transmissions indicate he made landfall.

When David’s tag resumed transmissions yesterday afternoon (Wednesday 17 April) we were delighted to see that he had completed his desert crossing and was in Extremadura, Spain! He has stopped in an area of open olive woodland, about 27km (17 miles) due N of the town of Cáceres.

David had travelled an additional 1885km (1171 miles)slightly east of due N since he was in the Mauritania desert two days previously. He appears to have taken the short route across the desert, west of the High Atlas and along the Moroccan coast, as we had thought he and BB might do. We don’t know why he had stopped in the desert at the time of the last transmissions, but we guess that it may have been due to adverse conditions, possibly wind or dust-related.

David has been in central Spain for six days now. He is currently 120km (75 miles) south-west of BB, and we are due to hear from him in the early morning of 24 April - might he have moved north?

As hoped, David’s faltering tag has charged well enough for transmissions to resume during his desert crossing.  Four transmissions were received this morning placing him in north-western Mauritania, close to the border with Western Sahara. Unfortunately, all four placed him in approximately the same place and he doesn’t appear to have moved at all during the three hours after dawn. Although we have seen cuckoos stopped in the desert during the day only to resume migration and successfully complete the crossing, it would be very unusual for one to do this so early in the day. We are concerned about this situation but hope for good news when David’s tag begins its next transmissions on Wednesday.

We didn’t hear from David’s tag during its last scheduled transmission period yesterday, which is in keeping with the poor charging and erratic transmissions of the last few months. We hope his tag will last long enough to enable us to track his return to Britain – hopefully when he moves across the desert, it charge well enough for transmissions to resume. 

With no signals from David for 2 weeks, we were stating to get concerned, although on his last transmission we could see his battery was very low and that he was still alive. He has now transmitted from Sierra Leone and is very close to the northern border with Guiena. From being the most easterly of the tagged Cuckoos, with his last known location in Cameroon, he is now the most westerly. Around 2650 km (1650 miles) separate these two locations and it’s likely he will have stopped once or twice in between these two points. Both David's and BB's current locations (in Sierra Leone and Guinea respectively)  are the first time we have recorded any of the tracked cuckoos west of Britain during spring migration. If they cross the Sahara directly from here to Morocco or western Algeria and then move on to Spain, they will effectively have re-traced the westerly route that we have seen some of the cuckoss tagged in England take in autumn. This would be especially surprising in the case of David, given that he wintered quite far east in the DRC.

Lloyd has now left David well behind, in Cameroon. It is now ten days since we heard from David’s tag so we hope to hear from it soon. When the last message was received, the temperature indicated that all was well with David but his tags’ charge was extremely low – it has been since early September, including in periods when it should have been exposed to plenty of sunlight, and the tag has apparently been having charging less well than the tags on other cuckoos. We hope that it will spring into life once David moves to a bright, sunny location but it is possible that the battery has degraded to a point beyond which this is possible. We will have to wait and see….

None of the Cuckoos began crossing the Sahara, as anticipated, over the Easter weekend but we still expect them to make a move soon. Stay tuned for further updates when we get news of any movements. 

David is still in the Central Region of Cameroon. He is currently 57km (35 miles) north-west of Cameroon's capital, Yaounde, the second largest city in the country with a population of approximately 2.5 million. 

As of 13 March, David was still in Cameroon. Other locations received confirm that Lloyd has not moved from his position in the Democratic Republic of Congo and that Chance remains north of Lake Volta, Ghana.

David, along with BB and now Chris, are now all in the East Region of Cameroon. David's tag transmitted a poor quality signal this morning about 20km (12miles) north-west of his previous location, moving him closer to the border with the Central Region.  David is 80km (50 miles) to the north-west of Chris's new postion and 120 km (75 miles) north-east of BB.

A new position received on the evening of 20 February shows that David has made another move northwards.  He is still currently in Cameroon but has travelled 97km (60 miles) slightly west of north, and appears to be heading in the direction of Chance’s last transmitted location.  This latest move means that there is 175km (109 miles) separating them now. 

After a period of silence since 2 February, we received a single new location for David in the early hours of 16 February. This revealed that he had moved 230km (142 miles) south-west from his previous location in the Central African Republic to the East region of Cameroon. He has moved back from the gallery forest – savannah mosaic to a large area of continuous closed canopy forest. He is not far from the villages of Atiek and Moapak and, although the accuracy of the location isn’t great enough to be sure, he appears to be close to the D27 road / track which is the only opening visible on the satellite photo in the forest within about 25km.

Chris, BB and Lloyd have still yet to begin their northwards movements and have all transmitted, from the same positions, in the last few days. Given the pattern seen so far, we may expect to lose transmissions for a few days as they feed up before they then make their move north. 

There have been no further transmissions from David since the 2 February, just after his big move, however the tag charge was low then. Hopefully it may receive some sunlight soon and charge up enough to transmit his current location. Chance is about 270km (168 miles) away from David's last known location. 

David’s tag resumed transmissions on 28 January, after a silence of 10 days, and showed that he was still in the same position within DRC that he had held since 27 December. Further locations received yesterday evening show that he had moved around 980km (608 miles) NNW from his previous location. 

This is the biggest movement we have seen from any of the Cuckoos for some time, so during his period of absence he was probably feeding up, fuelling for the journey he was about to make. He has moved completely over the block of more or less continuous closed canopy forest of the Congo Rainforest and is now in the southwest corner of the Central African Republic, 73km (45 miles) east of the border with Cameroon - he is in an area of what appears to be savannah with gallery forests and some forest blocks.

It looks like David has begun his journey back to the UK - this is about a week earlier than the first bird started to head north-west last year. Spring is just around the corner! 

Transmissions were received from both our Welsh Cuckoos' tags on the evening of the 16 January but there have been no significant movements from David and Lloyd to report.  

Chance, Lloyd, David and Chris all remain in their previous positions according to locations received in the last two days.  

So far in 2013, we have heard from four of the five remaining Cuckoos. We received tag transmissions from Chris and Chance today and from Lloyd and David yesterday showing there had been no substantial movements to report.

However, we haven’t heard from BB since the 30 December - at this stage this is nothing to worry about, though, as at this time last year we regularly went longer than this without hearing from the Cuckoos. A combination of poor charging conditions and a gradual decline in battery charge mean that they are transmitting less often, whilst as they are within the forest interference from trees reduces the chances of transmissions being picked up by satellites. Once they move on, or the weather at their current locations improves, we should start to receive positions more regularly again. 

David's tag last transmitted on the afternoon of 31 December indicating that he had remained in the same area. We hope to receive another transmission shortly. 

David has travelled south from the swamp forest. On the 22 December a transmission revealed he was 116 km  (72 miles) south from his previous position and by the 24 December he had continued 39 km ( 24 miles), crossing the Lukenie river. He is now close to the position he held on the 6 December, on the edge of the forest zone. A further signal recieved this morning indicates he is still in this area.

Last week we wondered whether David was heading for the savannah-forest mosaic just to the south of his latest position. It appears the answer was no! Between Thursday 6 and Saturday 8 December, he moved around 160km (100 miles) approximately NW from his previous position – this movement has taken him away from the edge of the forest zone into an area dominated by what looks like swamp forest, although it is hard to be sure form the Google earth map. We wonder whether David is actively seeking this kind of habitat (as Chris appears to have done) or whether he was simply not aware of what habitat lay in front of him before turned around. 

Now that BB has moved south, the five Cuckoos that we are still tracking all appear to be at, or close to, their final wintering locations. Although we can’t draw firm conclusions from such small numbers, the Scottish-tagged Cuckoos are wintering in the same area as the Cuckoos tagged in England (bar Chris) did last winter. The two Welsh Cuckoos are further to the east. This is really interesting but whether it reflects general differences in the wintering areas used by the different breeding populations will need to be confirmed by the results of further tracking work in the coming years.

David has moved about 80km (50 miles) south-west from the location in southern DRC that he held since about 18 September. He is still in an area dominated by continuous rainforest but has now has crossed the Lukenie River and is only 50km (31 miles) from the Kasai River at Mangai, which marks the boundary between the rainforest and forest-savannah mosaics in this area. It will be interesting to see whether he stays here for long or continues further south into the area of habitat that is much more similar to where the other Cuckoos (save Chris) are now and where the Cuckoos last year also spent winter.

It is notable that the two Welsh-tagged Cuckoos are to the east of the areas occupied by the Cuckoos tagged in England and Scotland both this and last winter. The very small numbers of tagged birds involved make it difficult to draw firm conclusions but this may reflect slightly different wintering locations for these populations. 

David is still in the same place within Democratic Republic of Congo that he has been in since 24 October and is still the most southerly of all the Cuckoos. We received transmissions from his tag yesterday.

There are currently just five tagged Cuckoos from which we are still receiving regular transmissions. While BB, LLoyd and David have all transmitted in the last couple of days, none of them have moved from their previous positions. Chris's tag transmitted on 7 November and showed he had made a small movement south of about 34km (21 miles), taking him closer to the Ubangi river. Chance also seems to have made a small movement recently and is now south-west of the Faro Reserve and only 54km (34 miles) from the border with Nigeria. 

No big movements to report from our remaining English and Welsh Cuckoos. David’s last tag transmission was on 30 October from within Democratic Republic of Congo. He is still in the same position, to the west of southern part of Salonga National Park, Africa's largest tropical rainforest reserve. Meanwhile, Lloyd’s tag signal confirmed that, as of this morning, 1 November, he is still in Central African Republic.  He has shown some local movements, heading northwest a short distance from his position on the 24 October, before then heading back southeast about 60km (37 miles).  Our English Cuckoo, Chris, remains in Congo, his tag transmitting in the early hours of yesterday, 31 October.

David’s tag transmitted on Sunday 23 October and indicates that he is still in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Looking at the map from last year’s birds, he is in an area much further east than any of the tagged English Cuckoos ventured. David is also almost as far south as the most southerly point received from the first year of Cuckoo tracking, this being from Kasper who was north-west of Kinshasa in Congo.

Over the weekend we received transmissions from David's tag who is still settled in Democratic Republic of Congo. There has been nothing further from Indy since 21 September.

Between 27 and 29 September, David moved 970km (603 miles) SSW from his location close to the border between Sudan and South Sudan. This placed him in some wet rainforest close to the Congo River in Tshopo District of DRC, a habitat occupied by poorly known animals such as the Okapi, a forest-dwelling relative of the giraffe, as well as the Bonobo, closest living relatives of humans, and a recently discovered species of monkey.  He didn’t stay in this area long, though, and by this morning (2 October) he had moved a further 570km (354 miles) SW to a location quite close to the southern edge of the continuous rainforest in Mai-Ndombe District. He has progressed by 1570km (976 miles) in five days.

At about 3°S, David is now the most southerly of the tracked Cuckoos and is nearly as far south as the most southerly tracked Cuckoo reached last year (which was Kasper at about 4°S). If he continues along this path for about another 160km (100 miles), David will reach an area of savannah habitat with gallery forest similar to the Teke Plateau in which four of the Cuckoos tracked last winter spent the mid-winter period. 

Having previously moved eastwards in southern Sudan, just north of South Sudan, we wondered whether David (and Roy) were heading to somewhere very different to last year’s Cuckoo. Like Roy, however, David has now headed off on a bearing west of south, back towards the wintering grounds of last year’s tracked birds. It’s not clear why Daivd moved so far eastwards first but it is notable that he moved across the northern edge of the Chaine des Mongos mountain range in northern CAR, whereas the routes of the other birds took them to its west, so he appears to have simply avoided the mountains via a different route. 

David transmitted yesterday and remains in the south of Sudan close to the border whilst Indy’s last transmission on the 21 September indicated he was still in the north of Cameroon. 

By the morning of Sunday 16 September, David had moved 728km (452 miles) ESE from the area in southern Chad that he had been in since 17 August. Although Roy also moved east of south along the border between Chad and Sudan about a week ago, the easterly component of this movement is very surprising – we had expected him to move SW towards the area of southern Chad that several of the other Cuckoos are either in or passed through on their way to the wintering area in the western Congo basin last winter. It will be really fascinating to see where he goes next – will he (and Roy) head to completely different wintering grounds to last year’s birds?

There have been no movements of note from our Cuckoos in the last few days. Transmissions have been received from Indy and Chance today and Lloyd, David, Wallace, Roy, BB and Chris in the last few days. Hopefully there will be more to report after the weekend! 

Locations received from Lloyd’s tag on 31 Aug still place him in west Italy. There has been no further information on Iolo but both Indy and Davids’ tags have transmitted in the last few days. David is still in Chad whilst Indy remains in northern Nigeria.  

Transmissions show that David has travelled only a small distance within Chad from his previous location on 20 August. He is, however, no longer the most southerly Cuckoo.

Between 15 August and 17 August David moved 500km (311 miles) SW to a location in southern Chad, leap-frogging BB on the way.  He is still there now (20^th August). This makes him the most southerly of the Cuckoos we are tracking – he is in an area of Sudan savannah which should be green and full of food for a Cuckoo at the moment, having been rained on in recent months. 

In the early hours of 15 August we received a transmission from David's tag - the first since 20 July - which revealed his new location in Sudan! He is the seventh of our tagged Cuckoos to reach Africa and is the most easterly Cuckoo. He is in west Sudan, close to the border with Chad, where three of the Cuckoos are currently. The series of transmissions received show he moved south around 190km (120 miles) during the tag's on period.

Apart from Indy, there is little news for the Cuckoos tagged in Wales – we have not received any recent locations for Iolo as his tag is not charging well (which might suggest he is soon to head south), Lloyd has moved 45km (28 miles) SW of Turin and David is still in Montenegro.

The last transmissions received on the 20 July were of an 'unconfirmed' nature but indicate that David remains in Montenegro. He has been here since the 27 June so we might expect him to make a move shortly.

There has been no movement for three of the Cuckoos tagged in Wales over the past week, with David still stopping over in Montenegro and Iolo and Indy doing likewise in the Po watershed. Lloyd, however, has been up to some very odd movements – see his blog for further details.

In common with the Cuckoos tagged in Scotland and England, over the past week there has been little movement form those tagged in Wales. The exception was Indy who, as reported in his blog last week, moved from France into Italy, joining Iolo and becoming the second Cuckoo to be staging in the Po watershed (Reacher passed though the region very briefly but is now staging close to the border between France and Spain). 115597 is still close to Marseille in France.

David continues to set precedents for our satellite-tagged Cuckoos. He was the first Cuckoo tracked to Slovakia and now is the first to transmit from Montenegro. We received data on the 25 June confirming his location in Slovakia, and the next transmission, received yesterday on the 27, came from Montenegro. That's a journey of 700km (440 miles), taking David very close to the Adriatic Sea. Will he cross the sea and stage in Italy?

Between the 20 and 23 June we received further transmissions showing David was indeed in Germany. He didn't stay there for long though - he continued on his south-easterly trajectory and by the evening of the 25 June he was 680km (422 miles) further on in central Slovakia. He is the first of our Cuckoos to transmit from this country. This is also the furthest east transmission we have received within Europe – his longitude is the same as the most easterly point any of the Cuckoos reached in Africa last winter, which was Chris’ location in southern Chad last autumn.
He currently appears to be in a forested landscape close to Partizanske. We are wondering whether David will head back west towards the stop-over in northern Italy or whether he will use a different stop-over further east, perhaps in or close to the Balkans.
 

David has followed the example set by our other Welsh male Cuckoos and made a move East. Like Iolo, he has taken a more northerly route and arrived in Norfolk.

We received data from his satellite tag on Monday 11 June that showed he was still in the area where he was tagged on the 30 May 2012 near Tregaron in Wales. We next heard from David's tag on the morning of Saturday 16 June, when we received a number of transmissions that gave a location near North Walsham in Norfolk. That's a distance of 360km (225 miles) travelled just north of due east between transmission locations.

At least two years old and an adult male, Cuckoo 115594 was tagged on 30 May 2012 near Tregaron, Ceredigion, Wales. Since he was caught he has remained in the area of Tregaron.