Updates from our Cuckoos

Since our last update, just before the weekend, Cuch Torc has moved approximately 246km (152 miles) north.

He is now in a lush mountain region in the province of Cáceres, some 160km (100 miles) west of Madrid.

After a few days spent in the Casablanca region, Torc swiftly covered 595km, (370 miles) flying into Spain just west of the Straits of Gibraltar.

He is now in the same area as Cuckoos Trent and KP, in the mountains to the north-west of the Andalusian city of Córdoba.

Cuach Torc has carried on northbound through Morocco in the last couple of days and is currently in the lush, agricultural region around the city of Settat just 60km (37 miles) south of Casablanca.

Will Torc be the first of our Cuckoos to cross into Europe?

It had been 12 days since we last heard from Cuach Torc, when he was still in western Ghana.

That all changed yesterday, when his transmitter revealed that he is now some 2,364km (1,469 miles) to the north in Algeria, just 22km (13 miles) from the Moroccan border. This puts Cuach Torc firmly in the lead, and the first of our tagged Cuckoos to cross the Sahara.  

New updates received over the last few days show that Cuach Torc has left the Congo and flown 2,102km (1,306 miles) west to Ghana.

He is now in western Ghana, a few miles east of Bui National Park and the Bui Gorge Reservoir.

At the end of January Torc departed his wintering area in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and crossed into the Republic of the Congo.

He is now in dense rainforest approximately 50km (30 miles) south-west of the town of Pokola. 

A few days ago Cuach Torc flew 260km (160 miles) north-west from his previous location, towards the border between the Republic of Congo and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).

He has since flown a further 135km (84 miles) east, deeper into DRC and is now close to the Busira River approximately 10 miles north-east of the town of Ingende.

Cuach Torc was the first of our tagged Cuckoos to reach the Congo wintering grounds this year, arriving on 20th September.

Since then has has remained in the same area, deep in the rainforest of Salonga National Park in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). This is Africa's largest tropical rainforest reserve, at 3,600,000 hectares it is more than half the size of Wales. This area is very isolated and only accessible by boat.

Since crossing the Sahara, Cuach Torc has flown 117 km (72 miles) south and is now in the Sahel of Central Darfur.

He is currently on the western edge of the Marrah Mountains, approximately 73 km (45 miles) north-west of the town of Zalingei.   

Over the last few days Cuach Torc has made excellent progress south. By Saturday evening (29 July) he had departed Greece, crossed the Mediterranean and reached northern Libya.

He carried on south and by late on Monday (31 July) he was over the Sahara in eastern Chad.

By early this morning (3 August) he had reached the Marrah Mountains in Darfur, Sudan. He is currently 40 km (25 miles) west of the town of Kutum.

It'll be interesting to see whether Torc remains in the area or continues further south into the Sahel.