Updates from our Cuckoos

 A transmission from Clement on 3 January at 07.53 showed that he is still on the Teke Plateau and still close to Lyster and Martin. Yesterday, the weather there was sticky and wet, with 80% cloud cover, 78% humidity and 11.2mm of rainfall.

Clement is one of three Cuckoos on the Teke Plateau in Congo, and has been there since 23 November. The plateau is covered in grassland interspersed with humid closed-canopy forest. Climatically, it is within the humid closed-canopy tropical forest zone but the sandy soils combined with frequent fires mean this habitat restricted mostly to the river courses. This seems to provide ideal conditions for Cuckoos – the satellite photos show how Clement is using forest patches with lots of edges in the northern part of the plateau.

At 12.44 on 15 December, Clement was still around 80km (50 miles) north-east of Lyster and around 100km (60 miles) north-west of Martin's new position in Congo. Will these birds get any closer? Watch this space.

Having been last to arrive in the rainforest, a message from Clement received at 03.06 on Thursday 8 December shows him settled just north of Lyster in Congo.

On 23rd November we received a transmission from Clement showing that he had moved 224km (134miles) south-east into Congo. This movement puts him just 82km (51miles) north of Lyster. Both Clement and Lyster took the western route through Spain to North Africa, and then flew down the western edge of the Sahara before heading east and then finally south east to get to Congo.
When the tags were fitted in the UK, Clement and Lyster were 76km (48miles) apart.
By 26th November he had moved a further 25km (15 miles) ESE to an area of forest along a river.
 

It was beginning to look like Clement was settled in Nigeria and that he might not head further south. However, at 19.42 on Friday evening (18 November) he transmitted from the northern edge of Minkebe National Park, Gabon, and by 09.00 this morning was just north of the Equator, between the Ivindo and Mwagne National Parks. Since leaving Nigeria on Friday he has travelled 1,215km. He was the first tagged cuckoo to leave the UK but the last to reach the vast Congo Rainforest.

Clement transmitted at 08.21 this morning and is still in the same location within Nigeria.

We heard from Clement on 2 November at 09:11. He is still in the same area in Nigeria but has been making lots of short feeding flights. Could he be getting ready to join the others further south?