Updates from our Cuckoos

Since leaving the UK on 11 June, Chris has been on a mini European tour, taking in eastern Belgium, including a short break in the Ardennes Mountains in southern Belgium, Germany, Luxembourg and the Netherlands. He is now back in northern Belgium on the edge of Antwerp Docks, 31km (20miles) from where he first settled ten days ago, having completed a round trip of 700km (435miles). This is the same area where Kasper first stopped after leaving the UK in 2011.

Chris is the first Cuckoo to leave the UK and is currently in Belgium, close to the Netherlands border.

Having been recorded back in the UK on 1 May 2012 in Essex he quickly moved back to Thetford Forest, the area where he was originally tagged. He remained in this area until 9 June when we had a series of poor quality fixes. These were inconclusive but when he transmitted again yesterday he was near the town of Hoogstraten in Belgium. How long is summer? Well for Chris it was less than 6 weeks!

It's interesting to note that Chris was the first bird to leave the area in which he was tagged last year – sometime between 3 - 5 June 2011 - moving down to Sussex for a few days. He then turned up in the Netherlands approximately 20km (12 miles) NNE of Maastricht on 17 June 2011.

His current movement took him on the correct bearing to reach the same staging area as last year but he stopped approximately 85km short. Will he end up in the same place this year?

The last transmission received from Chris's tag was on the 2 June which showed that he was still south-west of Mildenhall close to the River Lark. 

Chris is still on the south bank of the River Lark, Suffolk. He has moved a little to the east and is now close to Icklingham. He has now been on the edge of the River Lark for twenty-six days.

 A location from Chris's tag this morning showed that he was still near Mildenhall, Suffolk, on the southern bank of the River Lark. Female cuckoos have been heard in this area and might explain why he seems reluctant to leave.

As of yesterday, Chris was still on the banks of the River Lark, near to Mildenhall, Suffolk. He seems to have settled in this area and not chosen to head north into Thetford Forest to the site that he was tagged a year ago.

Chris's tag is due to come back online today. The last signals recieved on 8 May showed that he was still south west of Barton Mills and Mildenhall, Suffolk. He is 16km south east of his original tagging site at Santon Downham. He seems to be focussing on patches of isolated woodland on the south bank of the River Lark.

Data received from Chris' tag yesterday shows a location of Thetford Forest, the site where Chris was tagged in June 2011. In the eleven months and 10,000 miles since he was last in Norfolk, Chris has been followed by thousands of well-wishers. The drama of his journey is only matched by how much he, and his comrades, have taught us about Cuckoo migration, neatly summarised here.

With Chris having been heading slowly northwards towards the Alps at the weekend and with conditions favourable for onward migration, we were keenly anticipating the resumption of transmissions from his tag. Locations received early on Tuesday morning (1 May) showed that he was between Epping and Chipping Ongar in Essex! This places him about 5km (3 miles) east of Epping Forest.  He had migrated 950km (592 miles) in a north-westerly direction during the previous 48 hours.

Chris is still in northern Italy, but is on the move. His last transmission on 29th April came from just outside Milan, around 30 miles north-west of his previous location. We hope that the next set of data, due tomorrow, will show that he has crossed the Alps.