Updates from our Cuckoos

We haven't heard from 161319 for over a month now and fear the worse. As we have no further information we don't really know what happened to him, other than he didn't seem to make it out of the Italian Alps. The last location we have for him is in a wooded Valley just north of Finele in the Province of Bolzano.

It has been over twenty days since we last heard from 161319 and we aren't really sure why. When we last heard from him both he and his tag seemed to be OK. So, it might be that we have lost him or that his tag has failed, possibly as a result of being predated. He might even still pop up south of the Sahara. At this stage we just don't know.

We haven't heard from 161319 since 15 August and are slightly concerned about him. However, it is too early to reach any conclusions and he may still pop-up further south. The last locations received from his tag showed that he was in the mountains just north of Capanne di Fuori.

Cuckoo 161319 has spent five weeks at his chosen stopover site in the Italian Alps but during the evening of 2 August we received a series of signals that showed he had upped sticks and headed south; he was 608km (378 miles) further south in the Lazio region south of Rome, close to the west coast. On the 4 August he begun heading east, and by the early hours of 5 August he had crossed to the east coast. Two days later he crossed the Adriatic heading back north and stopped in Bosnia Herzegovina, only to move north again two days later into Croatia. A series of low quality signals received on 11 August suggest that he didn't stop in Croatia and is actually back in the Italian Alps, around 79km (49 miles) from where he set off a week or so earlier. It would seem that he hadn't sufficient resources to head south and cross the desert, and, after searching around for food has headed back to an area he knows well and where the feeding was good.

After spending 6 days close to Lyons in south-east France Cuckoo 161319 headed south and east into northen Italy, arriving just north of Genoa on 27 June. He was 10km (6 miles) from the Mediterranean coast. He didn't stay there long. By the morning of 28 June he had headed back north and was 200km (124 miles) north of Genoa in the Italian Alps, close to the border with Switzerland. He is currently between Bresciadega in the north and Novate Mezzola to the south.