Updates from our Cuckoos

From his position in Central Cameroon on 27 March, Lloyd continued onwards and by the late evening of 29 March he was in the Southwest region of Cameroon. Several hours later, and just minutes after the clocks ticked in to 30 March, he crossed the border and entered Nigeria. He had travelled 330km (205 miles). The next transmission was received early yesterday morning ( 1 April) and showed he had travelled a further  395km (245 miles) across Nigeria and was in the Ondo Region.  The closest Cuckoo to Lloyd’s new position is BB who is 300km (180 miles) to the east.

Lloyd remained at his location in the heart of the Congo Rainforest on Friday (22 March). However, a single unconfirmed location received in the early hours of this morning suggested that he had moved a further 450km (280 miles) NW since then, into north-western Democratic Republic of Congo and at the edge of the continuous rainforest. There were no further locations because the charge on his tag was very low, presumably due to him having spent time under the forest canopy, but we hope to have an update on his location on Wednesday morning. 

Lloyd has moved on from the position in DRC that he has held for a month – but not by very much! New locations received early this morning show that he has moved 305km (189 miles) NNW since Sunday 17 March. He is in an area of closed-canopy forest in the heart of the Congo basin, about 245km (152 miles) almost due W of Kisangani, close to the border between Equator and Orientale regions. 

Lloyd remains at the location he has held in Sankuru Nature Reserve, DRC, since 19 Feb. He was by far the latest bird to head south from Europe, making the Sahara crossing in early October, so it is interesting that he is late moving north too. We are still waiting to learn for sure whether he will follow the other Cuckoos, which wintered considerably further west, to West Africa or take a different route north. 

As of 13 March, David was still in Cameroon. Other locations received confirm that Lloyd has not moved from his position in the Democratic Republic of Congo and that Chance remains north of Lake Volta, Ghana.

The last signal shown on the map was transmitted on 24 February but over the weekend we received a further poor quality signal which shows it's likely he has remained in the same area. Zooming in on the map you can see he appears to be in the depths of the Sankuru Nature Reserve.  This is the world’s largest continuous protected area for great apes at 11,800 square miles and is the first large-scale reserve in the Congo to be managed by the indigenous people. None of the Cuckoos tracked last year wintered as far east as Lloyd, so we are waiting to see whether he will follow the other Cuckoos to Cameroon or whether he will do something different.  

A series of locations received early this morning for Lloyd’s tag showed he is on the move too! He has travelled 210km (130 miles) north-west within Democratic Republic of Congo since Saturday 16 February. This appears to be the beginning of his northwards movements and, although it’s only a short movement, suggests that he may well be heading to West Africa like last year’s cuckoos, despite wintering so far east. 

Chris, BB and Lloyd have still yet to begin their northwards movements and have all transmitted, from the same positions, in the last few days. Given the pattern seen so far, we may expect to lose transmissions for a few days as they feed up before they then make their move north. 

There have been no further transmissions from David since the 2 February, just after his big move, however the tag charge was low then. Hopefully it may receive some sunlight soon and charge up enough to transmit his current location. Chance is about 270km (168 miles) away from David's last known location. 

Lloyd’s tag transmitted on the afternoon of the 31 January. He is still settled in the same area he has been in since around 7 December, but with David's new movement, could Lloyd be the next to head north?