Updates from our Cuckoos

Since arriving in the area just east of Kendal, Peckham has remained settled here. During the late evening on 15 June he was 8km (5 miles) southeast of Kendal, and just north of Killington Reservoir and Lily Mere.

Peckham seems to have settled in Cumbria, on the edge of the Yorkshire Dales National Park. He is currently 8km (5 miles) east of Kendal.

In the last 24 hours Peckham has completed the last leg of his spring migration – travelling the final 170 miles from Gloucestershire to the Yorkshire Dales. He is now back at his breeding grounds, just east of Kendal and on the edge of the Yorkshire Dales National Park. In 2015 he started his autumn migration on 30th June, so we expect him to stay at his current location for the next two months. 

This morning, David Peckham became the second of our tagged birds to make it back to the UK, although he is not yet back at his tagging location in the Yorkshire Dales. Peckham departed northern Africa on 20 April and has made rapid progress to his current location near Painswick in Gloucestershire.

A location received from Peckham's tag during the morning of 10 April showed that he had crossed the Sahara. He was in southern Tunisia, just south of Tataouine, the Tataouine of Star Wars fame. A couple of poor quality locations received during the afternoon of 14 April show that he continued north across the Mediterranean and had made it on to the island of Corsica. We will have to wait for good quality locations to confirm this but we believe it to be the case. This would make Peckham our most northerly tagged cuckoo at this stage in their migration.

Locations received from Peckham on 29 March show that he has been in the same area of Ivory Coast for 21 days. It will remain to be seen how much longer he stays there. It could be that he will be the next Cuckoo to cross the desert, only time will tell.

Since arriving in Ivory Coast Peckham seems fairly settled. A series of poor quality locations recieved from his tag on 22 March show that he is still in the same area that he arrived in on 8 March. He is currently ahead of all of our other tagged Cuckoos, but only just; Stanley is only 17km (10 miles) behind him.

Peckham didn't stay long in Benin. A series of high quality locations received from him during the evening of 8 March show that he has continued west, flying through Togo and Ghana into Ivory Coast, and is 697km (433 miles) west of his last location in Benin. He is also further west than any of the other tagged Cuckoos - so far. He is currently in riverine forest between the vilages of Satama-Sokoura, Kakarakro and Dabokrira, and 160km (100 miles) northeast of the capital Yamoussoukro.