Updates from our Cuckoos

Since arriving in Burkina Faso 161321 has been fairly settled in the area to the west of Ouagadougou. His current location is on the edge of a cultivated area just north of the town of Saria. The weather is similar to that in parts of the UK at the moment, with a temperature of 28 degrees and the likelihood of thunderstorms over the next few days.

We haven't heard from 161319 since 15 August and are slightly concerned about him. However, it is too early to reach any conclusions and he may still pop-up further south. The last locations received from his tag showed that he was in the mountains just north of Capanne di Fuori.

Larry has successfully crossed the Sahara and is currently in southern Chad, close to the Manda National Park.

Since successfully crossing the Sahara and arriving safely in Mali, 161324 has moved south and east into Burkina Faso and is currently 82km (51 miles) north and east of the capital Ouagadougou.

After spending two days on the edge of the Sierra Nevada mountains, 161322 headed south across the Alboran Sea and into Morocco. After a brief stop in the High Atlas he continued south and west and is currently in Western Sahara, following in the footsteps of Cuckoo 161323 who successfully crossed the desert via this route a week ago.

Cuckoo 161319 has spent five weeks at his chosen stopover site in the Italian Alps but during the evening of 2 August we received a series of signals that showed he had upped sticks and headed south; he was 608km (378 miles) further south in the Lazio region south of Rome, close to the west coast. On the 4 August he begun heading east, and by the early hours of 5 August he had crossed to the east coast. Two days later he crossed the Adriatic heading back north and stopped in Bosnia Herzegovina, only to move north again two days later into Croatia. A series of low quality signals received on 11 August suggest that he didn't stop in Croatia and is actually back in the Italian Alps, around 79km (49 miles) from where he set off a week or so earlier. It would seem that he hadn't sufficient resources to head south and cross the desert, and, after searching around for food has headed back to an area he knows well and where the feeding was good.

Welsh Cuckoo David has now been in Montenegro for almost a month. This is David's fifth tracked migration south and so we know that it's not unusual for him to spend a good chunk of time here. In previous years he stayed in Montenegro until 15th August (2012), 22nd August (2013), 8th August (2014) and 28th August (2015), so he may stay for a few more weeks yet. 

Since arriving in France on 10th July, Hampshire Cuckoo Jack has been taking things very easy. He has covered just 200 miles, travelling south to his current location which is 50 miles north west of Lyon. 

Data received from 161322's tag at 4 am this morning showed that he had flown 200 miles south and was on the eastern edge of the Sierra Nevada mountains in southern Spain. 

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.