Updates from our Cuckoos

Livingstone has not travelled any further and remains in the same location. He is just slightly further north, at a higher latitude, than David, Patch and Tor. 

A week after Livingstone moved south, so too did Waller and Chris, overtaking him in the race south. However from his location in the Central African Republic, Livingstone headed directly south and by 6 October he was catching up and was in Congo, in a location near to the Odzala-Kokoua National Park.

A further poor quality signal today shows that he has travelled even further south and is at a similar longitude to David, our most southerly Cuckoo, who made a big movement south on 7 October to the Democratic Republic of Congo. This new movement will mean that he is one of only a number of tagged Cuckoos which have flown that far south, including David in 2012 and 2013 and Kasper in 2011. 

By the 15 September, Livingstone had moved south to the Mayo-Kebbi Ouest Region of Chad. Heading in a south but slightly westerly direction, by the morning of the 17 September, Livingstone had crossed into the north-east corner of Cameroon.  A further 280km (175 miles) south and he was in Mambere-Kadai region of Central African Republic, just east of the country's border with Cameroon, by 19 September. This is around 130km (80 miles) north-west of Berberati Airport. This latest movement makes him the furthest south of any of the tagged Cuckoos, although, perhaps not for long! 

Sometime after 29 July, Livingstone left his location near the river Po in Italy. Poor quality signals placed him on the coast of Africa by 31 July, close to Ichkeul National Park in Tunisia. A further series of poor quality locations tracked his journey through the Sahara Desert and by the evening of 3 August he was in south Niger. A few hours after this he was close to the south-west shores of Lake Chad in Nigeria before heading east, skirting around the lake and across the extreme north of Cameroon, and in to Chari-Baguirmi region of Chad. He is currently 44 miles east of the border with Cameroon.  

Signals on 5 July revealed that Livingstone had travelled to Italy, joining Chris and BB. Further signals received on 10 July show he is still in the same area, close to the river Po on the border of the Provinces of Pavia and Alessandria.   The area which both Whortle and David have travelled to, and then backtracked from, is about 70km (45 miles) south of Livingstone’s current position. 

On 25 June Livingstone was close to the south coast of England but signals received late on Friday evening (28 June) revealed he had left the country and was in central France.  Locations placed him in the valley of around 8km (5 miles) north of Roanne, in the Loire department. He appears to be in a wooded area close to the Loire River which runs through Roanne. He is the sixth tagged Cuckoo to leave the UK and the second Scottish Cuckoo, following behind BB. Signals received yesterday (1 July) confirm he is still in the same area. 

Unlike the Cuckoos tagged in Scotland last year, which flew straight across the sea to Europe, Livingstone, has moved south, heading down the west of the country and then taking a south-easterly direction from the Irish Sea to cut across England to the south coast. Transmissions just before lunch on 25 June show he was just north of Waterlooville in Hampshire but a later signal shows he has crossed over the border to West Sussex and is now between South Harting and Rogate. Interestingly, Karma, another of the Cuckoos tagged in the same area of Scotland this year, has chosen another tactic, instead moving eastwards to Aberdeen. Will he fly to Europe across the sea or skirt down the east coast in a similar fashion? 

Livingstone was caught in the evening of 21 May at Loch Iain Oig, NE of Kyle of Lochalsh and NW of Balmacara. He was the fourth of our tagged cuckoos to be caught that day, a relief to the team as he completed our sample before the weather was due to close in the next day. Since then he has generally remained in the area 2-4km (1.25-2.5 miles) to the NNE of where he was caught. He took quite a while to arrive at the catching location, from that direction, so we may have lured him in from some distance away!