Updates from our Cuckoos

Bill the Cuckoo was named by BBC’s the One Show in honour of comedian, musician, actor, TV and radio presenter and author Bill Bailey, to coincide with the publication of his new book Bill Bailey’s Remarkable Guide to British Birds. The book draws on his lifelong love of birds and birdwatching.

Bill has left Mali and headed east, crossing Burkina Faso, Ghana, Togo and Benin. He is currently in Nigeria, having arrived here around breakfast on 13 September, and is just north of Jebba on the banks of the River Niger.

Having spent a month in Mali, Bill has begun his journey east and is currently in the Dinderesso Forest in western Burkina Faso, just west of the second largest city in the country, Bobo-Dioulasso, with a population of just over half a million people. The weather at the moment is similar to that in parts of the UK, 29 degrees and high humidity.

On 4 August 161323 completed his desert crossing, arriving on the banks of the Senegal River on the border with Mauritania. He has since headed south and east into Mali and is currently close to the small town of Kinyema in fairly open forest.

Having made it to Africa and turned back to Spain, 161323 spent almost two weeks in southern Spain. He departed Spain on 30th July and covered 200 miles to Morrocco. Since then he has continued south-west and will hopefully have completed his desert crossing by the time his map next updates. 

On 12 July, Cuckoo Bill was in south-central France, west of Vichy, but by lunchtime on 14 July he had flown south, crossed the Atlantic and arrived in Africa. A couple of locations received from him on showed that he was in Tunisia, near to the Table de Jugurtha. Having made North Africa we thought that he might stay here for a little while before attempting the crossing of the desert, but he surprised us by heading west into Algeria and then north-west across the Mediterranean again before arriving in southern Spain on 17 July, settling in the Sierra Nevada mountains, just north of Almeria. It seems that the urge to get to a stopover site in Spain, one that this bird has probably used on previous migrations, was so strong that it overruled the fact that he had made it to Africa.

We are getting concerned about Cuckoo Bill. Since arriving in Normandy a month ago he hasn't moved very far from La Trotterie. Shortly after arriving here he was subject to a heavy hailstorm and cool conditions. We are keeping our fingers crossed that we get some positive news from him soon.