On the 20th May we received a report from a member of the public who had just found a bird's foot in Thetford Forest, Norfolk, that was carrying a metal ring. It was thought that the foot, being yellow, might belong to a small bird of prey. A search of the BTO ringing database showed that it belonged to Stanley. Whilst we will never know for sure what happened to him, we suspect that he fell victim to a predator of some sort.

Since arriving back Stanley has been frequenting his old haunts around the Cranwich Heath area. He has also visited Lakenheath Fen on the Norfolk/Suffolk border, something he did a few times in 2015. We expect him to stay in his breeding area for a couple of months. In 2014 he left Norfolk on 25 June, and in 2015 on 17 June.

We have a winner in the great Cuckoo race of 2016! Norfolk Cuckoo Stanley started his journey from Ivory Coast in west Africa on 7th April and 3,000 miles later, he is back in England. Stanley was tagged at Cranwich Heath, just a stone's throw away from BTO headquarters in Norfolk. He returned to the same general area in 2015 and it'll be interesting to see if he comes back again this year. He is currently just south of Yeovil in Devon. During his spring migration in 2015, Stanley stopped off in Cornwall on his way back to Norfolk.

Poor quality locations show that Stanly probably left Algeria late on 10 April, crossing the Mediterranean during the night. By 2am on 11 April he was on a small island (Cabrera) off the south coast of Mallorca. By 13 April he had successfully crossed the Mediterranean and was in northern Spain, hot on the heels of Vigilamus. Stanley took around five hours to cross the sea to Cabrera on his overnight flight.

Having rested in the Ivory Coast and been overtaken by Coo and David, Stanley has suddenly sprung back into action, with his latest signals trasmitting from northern Algeria. Stanley is now in second position in the Cuckoo race back to the UK. Will he catch Vigilamus?

Stanley has been settled in Ivory Coast for over ten days now. Locations received from him during the morning of 1 April show that he has been overtaken by Coo and David and is now lagging behind four other Cuckoos in the race to get back to the UK.

On 22 March we recieved a series of location from Stanley's tag that showed he had left the banks of the River Komoé. He has flown 78km (48 miles) west and is now hot on the heels of Peckham, the only tagged Cuckoo currently ahead of him.

Stanley seems to have the wind beneath his wings, since lunchtime on 8 March he has travelled a further 793km (493 miles) west to Ivory Coast, flying over Benin, Togo and Ghana on the way. He is Currently close to the River Komoé, 60km (37 miles) from the border with Ghana.

Since we last heard form him Stanley has flown a huge distance. Between the early morning of 1 March and around midday on 8 March he travelled 2,033km (1,263 miles) through Congo and Cameroon into Nigeria. He is currently in eastern Nigeria,102km (63 miles) from the border with Benin.

We recieved a series of locations from Stanley during the early morning on 1 March that showed he was still close to the Bolomba river in DRC. It may only be a matter fo time before he makes his move north and west. 

Since we last heard from Stanley he has moved north into the middle of the rainforest. He is still in DRC but is now close to the Bolomba River, 34km (21 miles) west of the town of Bolomba. 

A location received in the early evening of 17 December showed that Stanley had undertaken a short 42km (26 miles) flight south west. He is still on the southern edge of the Congo rainforest.

A location received from Stanley on 4 November showed him settled close to the Tumba Lediima Natural Reserve, DRC, and close to the area he arrived in at the end of September.

Since the last update, Stanley has travelled 700 miles to the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Stanley is now in the same area that he spent the winter of 2014/15 in, next to the River Congo.

Stanley has moved 370km (230 miles) southeast and has left Nigeria. He is now in northern Cameroon.

Stanley has journeyed on from his last location in Algeria to become the current most southerly tagged Cuckoos, having reached the border between Niger and Nigeria.  He is now further south than Hennah or Dudley, having covered 2160km (1340 miles) since his previous transmission. 

Stanley is the third of our tagged Cuckoos to arrive in Africa. Sometime after the morning of the 14 July, when we last received transmissions from Sardinia, he crossed the sea and travelled 745km (460 miles) to a location within northern Algeria.  

Stanley has left France and journeyed to the island of Sardinia, 560km (370 miles) to the south-east.  Previously only Sussex has ventured here on his way south.

Stanley is stll in the area of southern France that he arrived in just over a week ago. He is currently on the northeast edge of the Camargue.

On the 18 June Stanley had left his breeding grounds and headed south to Rayleigh in Essex. Just 2 days later he had crossed the Channel and was 775km (480 miles) further south in southern France. 

From Morocco, Derek had continued on a further 1000km (600 miles) to reach Spain, settling in an area north of the Sienna Morena Mountains, by 15 April. He was joined here on the same day by Stanley, who had travelled north-west from his location near Granada and the Sierra Nevada Mountains. They are now only about 7km (4.5 miles) apart. 

During the early hours of the 13 April, Stanley transmitted from the Sierra Nevada Mountains in southern Spain. He is the second bird to reach Europe - how long will he stay before heding further north?

On 13 March, Stanley a transmission from Stanley showed that he had moved west and crossed into Ivory Coast. He is currently 230km (143 miles) west of his last location in Ghana.

Stanley has continued on from Nigeria and has travelled 1295km (805 miles) almost directly west to reach western Ghana. He is now further west than Dudley, also in Ghana, and very close to the border with Ivory Coast.  

Stanley is on the move! Since the 5 March, Stanley has covered 790km (490 miles) north-west across Cameroon and is now in Nigeria. He is the fourth tagged Cuckoo this year to  travel in to West Africa and make a start on his return migration . 

Stanley has made a huge movement of 740km ( 460 miles) and travelled to the northern edge of the Congo rainforest. This is the first step of his migration home and he is now around 250km (150 miles) further north than the nearest Cuckoo, Derek, and 1350km (845 miles) further north than the most southerly of our Cuckoos, Chris.  Our Cuckoos seem to move to the forest edge to feed up for a while before then heading into west africa. 

In previous years David has also made his move as early as the end of January to the forest edge while BB and Chris have moved in February and early March.  

Stanley is still settled in the swamp forest of the Tumba Lediima Natural Reserve, although he has moved 25km (15 miles) to the north and west.

Stanley has left the Congo and skipped over the border into the swamp forest within the Democratic Republic of Congo’ s Tumba Lediima Natural Reserve. 

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.

Stanley left his location in Cameroon, likely because of drier conditions that also seem to have seen other Cuckoos leave the area, and headed south. By the 16 September he had travelled 660km (410 miles) south-east and was in central Congo, making him our most southerly tagged Cuckoo. He didn't stop there though and is now south of the equator! He travelled another 185km (115 miles) south-east, and is around 70km from the Congo river and Congo's border with Democratic Republic of Congo. 

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.

Stanley has travelled south from Niger and is now in Nigeria. He joins Sherwood bird Dudley, in the east of Nigeria, and Devon bird Emsworthy, who is about as far east in Nigeria as you can go, close to Nigeria's border with Cameroon. 

Stanley has made it across the desert. It appears that he left his location in western Italy and flew across the Mediterrannean sea to reach Libya on 29 July. Signals received on the afternoon of 31 July show him in southern Niger, where he has remained since. 

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.

BB has left Germany and flown over Austria to reach Italy and is close to Venice.  He joins East Anglian Cuckoos Stanley and Chris, and fellow Scottish Cuckos Livingstone and Waller, all of whom are in different areas of northern Italy.

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. 

Stanley is now on the move and, while the maps show him over the English Channel, we've received further (low quality) locations which place him south-west of Paris, France. Meanwhile BB is a little further behind but has left Scotland and, as of early this morning, was north-west of Newcastle. 

Our East Anglian Cuckoos have yet to budge, with all seven birds remaining in the UK. In previous years Chris has left between 11-21 June, while last year Skinner left on 30 June and Derek on 17 July. It may be a while before we see any movement from these two birds but keep an eye on Chris over the weekend.  

With a flurry of Cuckoos leaving the UK, Ash looks to be the only tagged Cuckoo remaining in the most southern of our tagging locations. 

Stanley was the last of three birds to be tagged in the Thetford area in 2014. On a misty morning near Cranwich Heath, Stanley hurled itself at our dummy female Cuckoo and into the net from a great distance, despite the nets being highlighted by the mist.