Updates from our Cuckoos

David has left the Central African Republic and is on his way back. During the evening of 22 March we recieved a good location from David's tag that showed he had overflown Cameroon and was in southern Nigeria, close to the Cross River. He is 900km (560 miles) west of his last stopover.

Locations received from David during the evening of 15 March show that he has moved north, flying 445km (276 miles) into the Central African Republic. He is currently in the same area as two other satellite tagged Cuckoos, Disco Tony and Larry. There has been recent rain in the area and there might be a good source of food that all three of them have homed in on. All three could head west any day now and join Peckham, Stanley, Coo and Vigilamus at the West African stopover.

Since popping back up we have heard very little from David. It might be that he has moved into deep cover in preparation for the next leg of his journey. In common with several other of our tagged Cuckoos, the next time we hear from him he could be in West Africa.

We were getting slightly concerned about not hearing from David since mid-January. However, after six weeks he has popped back up. He is still in DRC but has moved 242km (150 miles) northwest from his mid-winter location and is now pretty much in the middle of the rainforest.

We haven't heard anything from David since mid-December when he was located in southern DRC. We are not too concerned at this stage as Cuckoos often go missing for a few weeks only to pop up again. Hopefully, David is feeding up in preparation for a northward movement.

David is still in DRC but has moved 228km (141 miles) south within the rainforest. Larry is the only tagged Cuckoo further south than David.

A location received from David during the afternoon of 27 October showed that he was still settled in the area of the rainfrest in DRC that he arrived in on 13 October.

David has continued his journey south, travelling 600 miles south from his last position in the Central African Republic to the northern part of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. In previous years he has wintered about 500 miles further south so we expect him to make another journey before reaching his final wintering areas.

David has made a move south from Chad and into Central African Republic, travelling 215km (130 miles).  

By evening on the 26 August, David was on his way south from Montenegro and by the early hours of the 29 August he had covered 1865km (1160 miles) and was transmitting from Libya. The latest signals, received yesterday, show that he had almost completed his desert crossing and had made it to Central Chad. Larry, Disco Tony, Coo and Vigilamus are all just a little further south within Chad. In previous years he has made it to Africa much earlier, on the 4 and 15 of August, although in 2013 we received transmissions on the 25 August.