Updates from our Cuckoos

Having covered 1,207km (750 miles) from his stopover in Chad, Waller is currently the most southerly of our tagged Cuckoos. He is now in the Democratic Republic of Congo, 117km (73 miles) south-east of Chris. It will be interesting to see what he does next. Will he stay in this area like Chris has done for the last two winters, or in common with the other Cuckoos tagged in England and Scotland, will he head to the Teke Plateau, 300km (187 miles) to the south-west or perhaps head further east, like the two cuckoos tagged in Wales did last year? 

Waller has moved 135km (84 miles) south within Chad. This move takes him closer to Chris’s location and only about 100km (60 miles) now separates the two of them. He is also just 85km (52 miles) north-west of Zakouma National Park, Chads first National Park, created in 1963, which includes many large mammals including Elephants and Lions.   

Waller, Chris, Sussex and BB are all still in Chad and sending regular transmissions. Last year Chris was the first of our tagged Cuckoos to move south of Chad, arriving in the Central African Republic by the 18 September. Not long after this the Cuckoos moved on to the Congo Rainforest. 

Signals received late on 2 August confirmed that Waller had headed south and was about to attempt his desert crossing. A series of poor quality locations tracked him over Libya in the early hours of 3 August  and by the same time on 5 August  he had flown 1,720km (1070 miles) to the Hadjer-Lamis region of Chad,  30km (18 miles) south-east of Bokoro. He is roughly 65km (105 miles) from Sussex’s last transmitted location. 

Despite being the 13th Cuckoo to leave the UK, he has transmitted from Africa one day after Sussex, the first Cuckoo to leave the UK. 

Signals received on the afternoon of 31 July show that Waller was still in Italy but had moved into Tuscany, to a location 30km (18 miles) south-west of Siena. Having left his position in northern Italy sometime after the morning of 29 July he has travelled 345km (215 miles) in a southerly direction. Further poor quality signals received after this, throughout the evening of 31 July, indicate he then continued south along the coast and was as far as Rome when the tag transmission period ended. 

By the afternoon of 22 July, Waller had left France, crossed over Switzerland and made it in to Italy. His location was just west of Lake Como. This journey covered 460km (285 miles). He is about 85km (52 miles) north of Livingstone, another of the Scottish Cuckoos.  

On the evening of 6 July Waller’s tag transmissions revealed he was in Belgium! Poor quality signals received late on 4 July, just south of Port Augustus, may indicate the very start of this journey. Two days later he had flown roughly 1060km (660 miles) from his location on the Isle of Skye and was on the northern edge of the Ardennes mountain region, Belgium. Signals just a few hours later show he continued onwards, changing direction and heading in a south-westerly direction towards France over the Ardennes mountains. On the morning of 7 July and roughly 160km (100 miles) further south-west, he was close to Revigny-sur-Ornain, a commune in Lorraine in north-eastern France. 

These two Scottish birds are still in the area close to where they were tagged and have not yet followed Livingstone south. The Cuckoos from Devon, Wales and Sussex have all left. Who will be the last to leave, Cuckoos from the Norfolk Broads or those from Scotland? 

Waller was trapped late morning on 21 May at the Kinloch Hills on the Isle of Skye, close to the road linking the Skye ferry at Kylerhea to the Kyle of Lochalsh - Broadford road. He was caught at the same time as another bird that may have been a female and hence wasn’t tagged. Since then, he as remained mostly very close to the tagging location.