Updates from our Cuckoos

New transmissions sent late last night revealed that Chance was the first Cuckoo to have returned to the UK. His location was 40km (25 miles) north-west of Newcastle upon Tyne and just 2km (just over a mile) south of the village of Wark on Tyne. He has covered 763km (474 miles) from his position in France on 23 April and is now just over 170km (100 miles) away from Loch Katrine, where he was first tagged.

A location received at lunchtime on 23 April showed that Chance in in France. He is around 50km (30 miles) south-east of the port city of St Malo. He is now closer to the UK than Chris, and could be the first tagged Cuckoo back. He has travelled almost 700km (400 miles) from his last location south of the Pyrenees. His map will update tomorrow morning.

Locations received this morning show that Chance remains in the foothills of the Pyrenees. He has now been there for three days, despite conditions having been good for onward migration. He may need to rest and refuel before continuing his migration – it will be interesting to see how long he stays here before moving on. Currently, three of our tracked cuckoos are in Spain, with David and BB both further west than any of the other tracked cuckoos have been recorded in Europe. 

Having been in the latter stages of his desert crossing early on Tuesday morning, we had expected Chance to have moved into Spain by the time of the next transmissions due on Saturday (13 April). A series of locations received throughout that day showed that he had indeed done that, progressing a further 1135km (705 miles) N and stopping in the northern part of Aragon region, in the foothills of the Pyrenees. It is interesting that he has reached the central part of the mountains, with no indication of him attempting to go around one side or the other. Based on what we saw last spring and so far this spring from Chris, the speed at which he progresses from here back to Britain may depend on how favourable weather conditions are. Over the past two days, they do appear to have been favourable so it will be interesting to see where he is when his tag starts transmitting again this evening. 

Chance could still be next to make the desert crossing but at the moment unconfirmed signals suggest he is still in the Ivory Coast. 

None of the Cuckoos began crossing the Sahara, as anticipated, over the Easter weekend but we still expect them to make a move soon. Stay tuned for further updates when we get news of any movements. 

Having spent a month in eastern Ghana, by Sunday morning (24 March) Chance had moved 420km (416 miles) west to a location in Cote d’Ivoire (Ivory Coast). He is 40km (24 miles) north of the location that Martin spent 18 days preparing for his Sahara crossing at this time last year, and about 20km (12 miles) south of Comoé NP. As Chance has already spent some time at a stop-over in Ghana, we would expect him to spend less time in this area than Martin did. If timings are similar to last year, we would expect the first bird to head north over the desert during Easter weekend. 

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.