By the 19 July, Derek had left his position in France and flown 570km (325 miles) south-west and in to Spain, becoming the third Norfolk Cuckoo to take this route this year. He is just inside the Castile and Leon border with La Rioja, near to Quintanar de la Sierra.
Updates from our Cuckoos
Read the latest updates from our Cuckoos on their epic migration between the UK and tropical Africa, or track their movements in real-time on our Cuckoo migration map.
- If you enjoy these updates, please consider sponsoring a Cuckoo. Sponsors receive special updates about their chosen Cuckoo in the Cuckoo e-newsletter.
Derek in Spain
24 Jul 2013
Derek in France
19 Jul 2013
After being tagging, Derek remained in the same area for a further forty days. However, signals received on 17 July show that he had crossed the channel into France. Poor quality signals, which cannot be seen on the map, show that he set off from Norfolk in a south-westerly direction, leaving the coast just west of Brighton. He carried on in this direction, crossing the French coast just north and west of Barfleur and overflying the Cherbourg peninsular and carrying on in a south-westerly direction. He didn’t stop here and continued to fly south and west across Brittany to the Atlantic coast close to Carnac. Had he not changed direction here his next landfall would have involved a 500km (300 miles) crossing of the Bay of Biscay to north-west Spain. However, having reached the southern coast of Brittany he turned south-east along the coast before heading inland. Good quality transmissions then revealed that he was in Charente close to Sainte-Colombe, almost 800km (500 miles) due south of his Norfolk location, having flown over 1,000km (600 miles) to get here. The route shown on the map will only reflect these good signals and will show a straight line rather than the slightly more convoluted route we believe he has taken.
Three Norfolk Cuckoos remain in the Broads
04 Jul 2013
Apart from Skinner, the other three of our Cuckoos tagged in the Norfolk Broads remain in their tagging locations and have yet to move despite 12 out of 18 of our tagged Cuckoos having left the UK. Lyster, one of the Cuckoos tagged in the broads in year 1 of the project was the last to leave that year on 22 July (while the other four all left in June) and earned himself the nickname ‘Lyster the Laggard’. Will our Broads Cuckoos be last to leave in year 3?
115586 is named Derek
19 Jun 2013
115586 has been named Derek by Kate Bradbury, author and freelance wildlife gardening writer for the Guardian, who is supporting the Cuckoo Project.
115586 seeks name
12 Jun 2013
Although he was tagged at South Fen, East Ruston, on 5 June, 115586 actually spent the next week about 10km to the south-est, in the Hickling Broad and Horsey Mere area. He arrived there a few hours after release, having made a brief tour off to the north-west, towards North Walsham. New locations received this morning (12 June), however, showed that he had returned to the catching location.
115586 is still seeking a Cuckoo Champion. Could you or you organisation or company cover the cost of his satellite tag and give him a name?
Share this page