After a period of silence since 2 February, we received a single new location for David in the early hours of 16 February. This revealed that he had moved 230km (142 miles) south-west from his previous location in the Central African Republic to the East region of Cameroon. He has moved back from the gallery forest – savannah mosaic to a large area of continuous closed canopy forest. He is not far from the villages of Atiek and Moapak and, although the accuracy of the location isn’t great enough to be sure, he appears to be close to the D27 road / track which is the only opening visible on the satellite photo in the forest within about 25km.
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.
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David in Cameroon
Update on Cuckoo locations
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.
Chance confirmed in Cameroon
Chance makes a break for it
After an absence of a week, yesterday afternoon we received a location for Chance suggesting he had moved 925km (575 miles) NNE into Central African Republic. This is surprising as we would expect him to move north west at this time of year, like David did a week ago and all the tracked Cuckoos did last year. Although the accuracy of the location was apparently good, we can't verify whether he has in fact moved there because of the possibility that this is a 'mirror location'. The satellite system always produces two possible locations for a tag based on the signals received as a satellite passes overhead and usually, but not always, selects the most sensible one. The alternative location for Chance based on this satellite pass is in Cameroon and makes more sense to us, but until we receive further locations for Chance’s tag, we won’t be able to say for sure. Make sure you check back to see where he next transmits from!
(Chance's position was updated from Central African Republic to Cameroon. See the later blog post for more information.)
David's tag charge low
Spring is on its way
David’s tag resumed transmissions on 28 January, after a silence of 10 days, and showed that he was still in the same position within DRC that he had held since 27 December. Further locations received yesterday evening show that he had moved around 980km (608 miles) NNW from his previous location.
This is the biggest movement we have seen from any of the Cuckoos for some time, so during his period of absence he was probably feeding up, fuelling for the journey he was about to make. He has moved completely over the block of more or less continuous closed canopy forest of the Congo Rainforest and is now in the southwest corner of the Central African Republic, 73km (45 miles) east of the border with Cameroon - he is in an area of what appears to be savannah with gallery forests and some forest blocks.
It looks like David has begun his journey back to the UK - this is about a week earlier than the first bird started to head north-west last year. Spring is just around the corner!
BB and Chance remain close
BB's tag transmitted on the 29 January while Chance's tag sent locations in the early hours of this morning which show that they remain just a few miles apart - possibly as few as two miles.
Chris content in Congo
Roughly 385km (240 miles) north of Lloyd's position, signals were received on the evening of 29 January from Chris' tag, but he has not moved from his previous location. Last year, his tag was still transmitting from Congo on the 19 February. The next signal received after that wasn't until the 6 March when he turned up in Togo.
Lloyd settled for now
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?
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