Updates from our Cuckoos

A signal received from Larry's tag at 7:20pm on 31st July placed him in southern Libya, on the northern edge of the Tibesti mountains. He seems to be taking a very similar route to last year when his crossing took him to Chad. Hopefully the next transmission from Larry's tag will show that he has successfully crossed the Sahara. 

Having made it to Africa and turned back to Spain, 161323 spent almost two weeks in southern Spain. He departed Spain on 30th July and covered 200 miles to Morrocco. Since then he has continued south-west and will hopefully have completed his desert crossing by the time his map next updates. 

Since leaving France on 22nd July, Norfolk Cuckoo PJ has taken a very direct route south, travelling 1,600 miles due South into Algeria and the pressing on for another 660 miles to arrive at his current location in eastern Mali. He is the third tagged Cuckoo to successfully cross the desert and is currently near the D'ansongo-Menaka nature reserve close to the border with Niger. This is an area previously visited by Whortle. 

Since crossing the Sahara and arriving in Mali on 12th July, Hampshire Cuckoo 161321 has started to push east, travelling 350 miles over the past few days. He is currently in Burkina Faso 80 miles west of the capital Ouagadougou, in the Sorobouli Forest.

On 22nd July 161324 left Spain and flew 300 miles south into northern Algeria. He only stopped there for a few hours before pushing on south, flying 1,500 miles to cross the Sahara and arrive at his current location in Mali.

On 12 July, Cuckoo Bill was in south-central France, west of Vichy, but by lunchtime on 14 July he had flown south, crossed the Atlantic and arrived in Africa. A couple of locations received from him on showed that he was in Tunisia, near to the Table de Jugurtha. Having made North Africa we thought that he might stay here for a little while before attempting the crossing of the desert, but he surprised us by heading west into Algeria and then north-west across the Mediterranean again before arriving in southern Spain on 17 July, settling in the Sierra Nevada mountains, just north of Almeria. It seems that the urge to get to a stopover site in Spain, one that this bird has probably used on previous migrations, was so strong that it overruled the fact that he had made it to Africa.

During the late evening on 13 July, locations received from Cuckoo 161322 showed that he had left Italy and was heading out across the Mediterranean. As the night and early morning of the next day unfolded it became clear that he had embarked on an incredible journey. At 10.30pm he was 15km (9 miles) from the French coast close to the Illes de Hyeres and heading south.

The next location we received was at 7.30am on the morning of the 15 July. At this time he was over the sea, 45km (28 miles) north of Algiers and the North African coast. An hour later he was 65km (40 miles) to the west and flying parallel to the coast, albeit 30 miles out. At 8.40am he had turned north and was heading back out into the Mediterranean sea, only to turn west again and head in the direction of mainland Spain. By 10.30am he was midway between Algiers on the North African coast and Guardamar del Segura, near Murcia on the Spanish coast. He maintained this course and by noon was 54km (33 miles) from the Spanish coast.

He made landfall at 3.30pm just north of Guardamar del Segura but this isn't the end of this incredible journey. On the 18 June he had headed north and was just west of Madrid at a stopover site that several of our tagged Cuckoos have used in the past. It seems that this was where he intended to fly to when he left the French coast, but had possibly drifted off course. As soon as he could he corrected this and eventually made it there three days later, presumably much lighter than when he set off.

On 10 July Peckham arrived in the Po valley in northern Italy. This is the same area in which he carried out his stopover last year, arriving here in 2015 on 4 July. In 2015 he remained in the area until 29 July.

Locations received from Markoo's tag around lunchtime on 9 July showed that he was in southern Picardy, in an area of woodland on the outskirts of Braine, northern France. He didn't remain here long, by teatime on 11 July he was in an area of woodland to the west of Lyons in southern France.

Larry has left the heatwave in Croatia and has the crossed the Adriatic to southern Italy. The temprature here is a somewhat cooler - 30 degrees centigrade. Larry took the same route last year. From here we expect him to cross the Mediterranean to Libya and head across the desert towards Lake Chad.