Updates from our Cuckoos

During the last couple of days Bowie has moved south and east and is now in Chad and just to the northwest of Manda National Park. Since leaving the New Forest on 12 June he has flown 4,893km (3,040 miles). He has averaged 139km (86 miles) per day during his travels so far.

The poor locations received during the last few days were right, Bowie was crossing the desert. Yesterday evening his tag showed that he had successfully crossed the Sahara and was in northern Cameroon close to the Waza National Park. The park is largely open savannah forest with the yaere floodplain to the north. It will be interesting to see how long Bowie remains here, recuperating after the 2,800km (1,700 miles) flight over the desert.

We received a series of locations during the early hours of 9 July that suggest Bowie is in Algeria, North Africa. However, they don't stop there and it seems that he might have set out on his desert crossing. If this is the case, we will know more in a couple of days, it will see him cross the Sahara at its widest point, a journey of around 2,500km (1,500 miles).

Having spent 9 days in woodland just to the south of Orleans, Bowie has moved again. On 19 June we recieved locations from his tag that put him in woodland 175km (108 miles) further south and east, a few kilometers southeast of Louroux-Hodement. He is now over 600km from his tagging site.

During the early evening on Sunday we received a series of poor locations from Bowie's tag that suggested he had left the New Forest and was in France. Just before 10pm on the same day we received a good qulaity location that showed he had done just that, and was in woodland just to the south of Orleans, 433km (269 miles) southeast of his tagging location.