Updates from our Cuckoos

At 04:05am on 8 August we received a series of good quality locations from Raymond's tag that showed he had successfully completed his desert crossing and was on the eastern edge of the Reserve de Faune du Ferlo Nord. He is the last of our Cuckoos to cross the desert this year.

We hadn't heard from Carlton II's tag for over a week and wondered what he might be doing. We now know that he was crossing the Sahara. Recent locations show that he completed his desert crossing around the 6 August; on this date he was in western Senegal. We know that in the days running up to 6 August, fairly strong easterly winds were blowing in the desert and it seems that Carlton II got caught up in these and was drifted west. He has already begun heading east and is now in eastern Senegal, in the Foret de Diambour.

During the evening of 5 August Sherwood was crossing the Sahara and was in the Akchar Desert, to the west of the Richat Structure, also known as the eye of the Sahara. The terrain here is barren and the daytime temperature is currently around 40 degrees. The winds are fairly strong in this part of the desert right now and are coming from the east. This will cause Sherwood to drift to the west. If successful in his crossing, he may well join Thomas and Lambert in Senegal. 

Locations from Raymond's tag during the hours of darkness on 5 August showed that he was crossing the desert, and that he was in central western Mauritania and about half-way across. His tag should have powered back up overnight on 7th August but we haven't heard from him yet. This is not unusual and we hope that when we do next hear from him he is safely across the desert.

Knepp successfully crossed the Sahara on the evening of 2 August but having arrived in southerwestern Mali he didn't hang around. He has since moved east and crossed into Burkina Faso, joining Victor, Selborne and PJ, who are all also in Burkina Faso. There has been quite a bit of rain during the last week in this area and the temperature has mostly been in the low to mid 20's, which sounds perfect for the invertebrates that these Cuckoos will need to fill up on after their mammoth desert journey.

Sylvester has reached the Sahel and the southern edge of the desert. He is currently in the Gao region of eastern Mali and just to the north of the D'ansongo-Menaka Reserve. It is the rainy season and rain is forecast for the next few days, this should provide Sylvester with plenty of food.

Having spent seven days just to the north of Lake Chad, Robinson is now to the south of it. He has moved south and west and into Nigeria. It is currently raining where he is.

PJ's tag has come on early, probably due to it getting lots of sun during the desert crossing. A series of locations received from his tag during the evening of 1 August show that he continued his flight across the desert and made it to the Sahel. He is currently in Mali on the banks of the Niger River. It looks like the easterly winds did drift him a little west.

When we last heard from Sylvester's tag at just after 5pm on 31 July he was undertaking his desert crossing and was pretty much in the middle of Algeria and about a third of the way across the desert. His tag should power-up again during the evening of 2 August and show whether he has made it across.

Around mid-afternoon on 31 August PJ's tag showed that he was crossing the desert and was about a third of the way across. We will have to wait until 3 August to see if he makes it. The winds in this part of the desert are currently from the southeast but much lighter than they have been. If he maintains his course he will arrive on the southern edge of the desert in Niger or Nigeria. The winds in the southern part of the desert are quite strong from the east right now and it might be that he gets drifted a little way to the west during the latter part of the crossing.