Updates from our Cuckoos

New updates received from Cuach Cores' tag on Saturday afternoon (14 October) showed that he had successfully completed his desert crossing. He has now reached southern Niger where he is hopefully finding plenty of food along the banks of the seasonal Korama River, some 50km south of the city of Zinder.  

Between departing Spain sometime on Tuesday 10 October and arriving in southern Niger on Saturday 14 October, Cores has flown approximately 3,361km (2,088 miles). What a thrill it has been to follow his late charge from France to Niger. Will he now pause for a rest, or will he press on to the Congo? 

We have been waiting with baited breath to see what Cuach Cores' next move would be and thankfully we didn't have long to wait. New updates received between yesterday afternoon and this morning show that he has not only reached Africa but is making excellent progress across the Sahara.

His journey so far has taken him from Spain, across the Mediterranean to Algeria and on south into Niger. The latest update arrived at 10:15 this morning and showed that Cores had passed to the east of the Air Mountains of northern Niger. There are favourable north-easterly winds in this area at the moment which will hopefully give Cores some welcome assistance as he progresses south.  A few hundred kilometers more and he'll be safely across the desert. 

When we loaded the satellite data earlier today we were greeted by the welcome news that Cuach Cores is on the move again!

After progressing south through France and then east into Italy, he returned to eastern France and very nearly ventured into Switzerland before heading west again and spending the last few weeks near Bordeaux. 

He is a long way behind out other surviving tagged Cuckoos which are all south of the Sahara.

Having almost given up hope for him, we were delighted to find that we had received updates from his tag early this morning showing that he had flown 450km south into Spain and is now in the mountainous Serra de Llaberia natural park, Catalonia. 

Hopefully Cuach Cores is carrying sufficient fat reserves to fuel his onward journey into Africa and across the Sahara, fingers crossed!

Cuach Cores' tag is still transmitting loud and clear from a location in the countryside south of the town of Arsac, just north of Bordeaux, France.

Although we don't have any conclusive evidence that Cuach Cores has perished, the fact that he has spent so long in the same location and is so far behind the tagged Cuckoos makes us fear the worst for him.

Cuach Cores has continued his move east, flying 321 km (200 miles) east to his new location in the countryside north-west of the city of Morteau. Morteau is in the Bourgogne-Franche-Comté region of eastern France and just 6 km or so from the Swiss border.

He is now only 215 km from the stop-over location in northern Italy that he started this part of his detour from, will he cross the Alps again back into Northern Italy?

New updates received from Cuach Cores' tag between 3 am and 10 am this morning show that he has flown 141 km (88 miles) east from his last location.

He has spent the last few hours close to EDF's Dampierre nuclear power plant  in the town of Dampierre-en-Burly, in the Loiret department of north-central France. 

Over the last couple of days Cuach Cores has flown 390 km (243 miles) north-west through France, taking him to the Indre-et-Loire department in central France. He is close to the town of Les Hermites, approximately 30 km (18 miles) north of Tours. 

Although we have seen Cuckoos turn back on themselves before, the size of this movement makes us suspect that Cores was unable to improve his body condition at the stop-over locations he had used further south. Hopefully he will find a better feeding area now that will enable him to build up his fat reserves for the journey ahead.  

Since crossing back into France from Italy, Cuach Cores has flown 270 km (168 miles) west and is now in the Lozère department in southern France.

He is currently 8 km (5 miles) north of the town of Marvejols and very close to The Wolves of Gevaudan wildlife park.  

Having been so quick off the mark and being the first of our tagged Cuckoos to leave, we might have expected Cuach Cores to be well on his way south by now. But instead, he has spent the past five weeks or so in north-western Italy. He has remained close to the River Elvo, between Salussola and Carisio in the Province of Vercelli.

New updates received from Cores' tag between midnight and 7 am this morning (4 August) show that he has flown 212 km (132 miles) south-west, back over the Alps into south-eastern France. He is currently a few km east of the town of Digne in the Alpes-de-Haute-Provence department of France. Could this be the start of Cuach Cores' next major leg of his journey south?