Updates from our Cuckoos

Larry is currently the most easterly of our tagged Cuckoos. Since crossing the desert at the end of July he has been settled in an area of forest in southern Chad.

Around 5pm on 28 July Larry's tag showed that he had successfully crossed the desert. He is currently around 200km (125 miles) north of the stopover site he used in southern Chad in 2015, 2016 and 2017.

We were getting quite concerned about Larry. Having not heard from his tag for 11 days we were beginning to fear the worst but did also consider that the battery that powers his tag might not be getting a very good charge. The island of Cres, his stopover site in Croatia, is very wooded and he was almost certainly spending time under the canopy feeding. However, we now know that Larry is alive and well and crossing the Sahara.

Larry is on his fourth migration since he was fitted with his tag in 2015. he seems to time his desert crossing for the last week in July, and is normally on the southern edge of the desert in the first few days of August. This year he seems to be timing things perfectly again. His tag stopped transmitting around breakfast on 26 July, it will be powered down for 48 hours to allow the solar panel to charge the onboard battery and then power up again around breakfast on 28 July. It will be interesting to see where he is when this happens.

On the evening of 20 June, Larry was still at his tagging site in the Forest of Bowland, Lancashire. On the evening of 22 June he was 1,554km (964 miles) south east of that location and in Slovenia. Having moved a little further south since, he is currenlty on the Croatian island of Cres. He stopped here in 2017, arriving on 22 June, this year he arrived there a day later. In 2017 he remained on the island until 17 July before moving to southern Italy.

Since arriving back in the UK on 8 May, Larry has remained faithful to his tagging site in the Forest of Bowland. With some of our Cuckoos now in France, Larry could leave any day now.

From west of Barcelona on the 30 April, Larry has flown 1390km (865 miles) to return to the Forest of Bowland, in north-east Lancashire by the early hours of 8 May.  He is now back in the area in which he was tagged and will be looking for female Cuckoos to breed with. 

On 26 April Larry's tag transmitted signals indicating that he has safely completed his desert crossing. From Algeria on the 22 April, Larry covered a further 1520km (945 miles), crossing the ocean, to reach north-eastern Spain. He is north of Agramunt in Catalonia.

Larry is on his way! Signals  received on the 22 April show Larry in Algeria, mid-way through his desert crossing! He is the fourth of our tagged Cuckoo to cross the desert. Hopefully we will find out shortly if he has made it safely across. 

Larry has moved west and is currently in Ivory Coast, close to the border with Ghana. Looking at previous years we have no idea where Larry will launch his desert crossing from, two years ago he crossed from Nigeria and last year from Guinea. With any luck we should find out in the next week or so. Watch this space.

Larry has continued on northwards, leaving the Republic of Congo, and heading over the border into the Central African Republic. He has travelled 300km (185 miles) and is on the northern edge of the Dzanga-Sangha National Park. In previous years he has moved into West Africa during March. The first year we tracked him he made his desert crossing from Nigeria in April, but the second year he moved much further west, into Guinea, and crossed from there. What will he do this year?