Updates from our Cuckoos

After popping up in Nigeria, Peckham hasn't hung around. At around 09.30 on the morning of 4 March, we received a location that showed he had moved 603km (374 miles) further west and was in Benin, 34km (21 miles) from the border with Togo.

We last heard form Peckham over a month and a half ago, and, whilst he seemed to be alive at the time, we were beginning to get concerned. A location received from him during the early evening on March 1 showed that not only was he alive, he was on his way back to the UK! He is currently in Nigeria 55km (34.5 miles) east of the River Niger and 213km (131 miles) south of the capital, Abuja.

We last heard from Peckham on 13 January. At that time everything seemed OK. He was alive and well and his tag was in good working order. We hope that he has moved into deeper cover, as it seems some of our other Cuckoos have done in the past at this time of the year, and that he will 'pop-up' in the next few weeks when he begins to move again.

We last heard from Peckham on 13 January. The location recieved showed that he was still in the area of Gabon in which he has spent most of the winter. Hopefully we will get an update from him soon.

A location received on 26 October showed that Peckham was still in Gabon and in the area he first arrived in on 3 October. It will be interesting to see where he goes from here as non of our tagged Cuckoos have spent the winter in Gabon before.

Since the 3 October, Peckham has left Chad and been slowly travelling further south, covering 1300km ( 810 miles)  to reach a new location in the Gabon, in the the depths of the Congo Rainforest by the early morning of 8 October.  Three of our other tagged Cuckoos are also in the rainforest, although they are further east in Democratic Republic of Congo.

Peckham had us worried there for a moment before delighting us when his tag sent a signal on 7 August, showing he has travelled south a further 370km (230 miles) into Chad.  He still faces many challenges so lets hope he arrives safely in the central Sahel region. 

Peckham has remained in the desert in Chad since his tag first transmitted from there on 1 August. We were quite worried that he may have persished while trying to cross however a quick look at the recent weather conditions in his location in the Tibesti Mountains revealed that the area has had about half an inch of rain in the last week! This may explain why he has stopped there, in what would normally be a rather strange move for any of our Cuckoos. Hopefully he continues onwards shorlty and makes it successfully to south of the Sahara!

Peckham has left Italy, flown over the Mediterranean and arrived in Africa. Passing through Libya he completed a journey of 1900 kilometres (1,175 miles) to reach northern Chad, arriving near the Emi Koussi volcano. He still has a way to go to complete his desert crossing and reach a location in southern Chad where he can rest and refuel safely. 

From Northern Italy, Peckham has flown 930km (575 miles) southeast to a location in the toe of Italy, close to Bovalino, in the region of Calabria.