Updates from our Cuckoos

A host of signals received from Coo's tag aroung breakfast time on 1 May showed that he was back at RAF Fylingdales, completing a round journey of almost 15,000km (9,500 miles). Since his arrival he has been flying all over the RAF Fylingdales area, presumably in search of female Cuckoos.

A signal received from Coo's tag early this morning showed that he had travelled a further 260 miles from his last location in France. He has now crossed the channel and is near Battle in East Sussex. The next map update should show us whether he is hanging around in East Sussex or pushing straight on back to the North York Moors.

In the last 24 hours Peckham has completed the last leg of his spring migration – travelling the final 170 miles from Gloucestershire to the Yorkshire Dales. He is now back at his breeding grounds, just east of Kendal and on the edge of the Yorkshire Dales National Park. In 2015 he started his autumn migration on 30th June, so we expect him to stay at his current location for the next two months. 

A poor quality location recieved from Vigilamus's tag on 23 April showed that he had made it back to Britain and was in the Forest of Dean, Gloucestershire. However, it seems that he didn't stay there long. A very poor location from his tag on 25 April, so poor that it won't show on the map, suggests that he has moved north and is in fact back on the North York Moors. We are concerned about him as there have been several heavy snow showers on the moors with lying snow for short periods of time. The battery charge on his tag is good and we should have received more good quality locations from the tag, but haven't. We have our fingers crossed that he hasn't succumbed to the cold, only time will tell.

Since arriving back Stanley has been frequenting his old haunts around the Cranwich Heath area. He has also visited Lakenheath Fen on the Norfolk/Suffolk border, something he did a few times in 2015. We expect him to stay in his breeding area for a couple of months. In 2014 he left Norfolk on 25 June, and in 2015 on 17 June.

Vigilamus is our third Cuckoo to return to England. We haven't received a good signal from his tag yet so his map hasn't updated - but it should in the next day or so.

This morning, David Peckham became the second of our tagged birds to make it back to the UK, although he is not yet back at his tagging location in the Yorkshire Dales. Peckham departed northern Africa on 20 April and has made rapid progress to his current location near Painswick in Gloucestershire.

Larry left Sardinia on 19 April, arriving on the southern coast of France, just east of Marseille. By the early morning of 22 April he was 568km (323 miles) northwest of Marseille and just north of Savigny-en-Sancerre. Conditions here can't have been right as locations received from his tag on 26 April showed that he had flown 321km (200 miles) southwest and was just north of Bergerac. Hopefully, he has found better conditions and a source of food to fuel the rest of the journey home.

A single location received from David's tag around breakfast time on 26 April showed that he was in northern Spain. He is in an area of farmland on the southern edge of the Cantabrian Mountains, 88km (54 miles) from the Biscay coast. Go David!

On the 19 April Coo was still in Spain but by the early morning of 24 April a location received from his tag showed that he had crossed the Pyrenees and was in France, 520km (323 miles) north of his last position in Spain.He is currently in Centre region in an area of woodland just west of Marigny-Marmande.