Updates from our Cuckoos

We have received no further signals from Cookie. The data from his tag showed a low battery charge and although there is no evidence that he has died we think that this is likely. Dr Chris Hewson, lead scientist on the project visited northern Italy during the summer and found Cookie alive and well but in a location that held a very active Peregrine. Peregrines are known to take Cuckoos on migration and it is not impossible that this could have happened to Cookie.

We are still receiving poor quality signals from Chris that show he is still just north of the Tibesti Mountains in northern Chad. He has been here for almost four weeks and although we have no direct evidence that he has died, it seems unlikely that he would stay there for that length of time even though the area has recently received some rainfall. It may be that after over four years of following Chris's journey it may have come to an end. 

No further signals have been received from Fred’s tag since 1 August.  His tag has not been charging properly for several months and has been showing generally very low but erratic voltage. There is strong evidence that Fred’s tag has failed and nothing to suggest that he has died but it is unlikely that we will receive further signals to alert us to his progress. 

A number of locations from Fred on 1 August showed that he had left France and was in Spain, just west of Madrid.

By evening on the 26 August, David was on his way south from Montenegro and by the early hours of the 29 August he had covered 1865km (1160 miles) and was transmitting from Libya. The latest signals, received yesterday, show that he had almost completed his desert crossing and had made it to Central Chad. Larry, Disco Tony, Coo and Vigilamus are all just a little further south within Chad. In previous years he has made it to Africa much earlier, on the 4 and 15 of August, although in 2013 we received transmissions on the 25 August. 

Disco Tony is the latest our of tagged Cuckoos to reach Africa and attempt the desert crossing.

The last good signals received prior to this were from early August, and located him to the west of Milan, Italy in the area which has been afffected by recent droughts.  Poor signals on the 18 August indicated he had left Italy and travelled 1765km (1100 miles), crossing over the sea to Africa to reach northern Libya.  Since then he has covered a further 2120km (1320 miles) to reach central Chad. He is now south of the Sahara and hopefully will find suitable conditions to recover from this epic trip. Other Cuckoos have struggled to prepare successfully for the challenge given the conditions in Italy so we hope that Disco Tony has had more success and can continue onwards shortly.

By the 16 August, signals show that Derek was on his way again, heading south over Algeria and making his desert crossing. The last signals on the 18 show he had made it as far as central Mali.

We haven't received any good quality locations for Chris since 3 August, although poor quality signals do indicate that he left Italy shortly after this and was crossing the Mediterranean Sea on the 5 August.  

The Po Valley in Italy is Chris's usual stopover site, however, the region is experiencing its worst drought in years, and given the short length of time our Cuckoos have spent here this year, has presumably led to a shortage of caterpillars.

A series of poor signals from Chris’s tag show that he has made it to the Tibesti mountains in Northern Chad by 8 August, but no good signals have been received to confirm this and elevate his location so that it is visible on the public maps. He seems to have been here for around eight days which is very worrying as he normally crosses the desert in a day or two, stopping on the shores of Lake Chad in the south of the country and on the southern edge of the desert.

At this stage we are very concerned about him and, given the conditions in Italy, we fear that he may not have been able to take on the amount of food needed to prepare for, and successfully complete, the journey. Both Peckham and Larry also stopped in the mountain area and continued on to complete their crossing of the desert, though neither spent as long as Chris has in the area. 

Since the 14 August, Charlie has been slowly moving south eastwards. He left the west coast of Greece and by 16 August had covered around 250km (160 miles) to make it to the Prokopi, on the east coast.

The Po watershed and surrounding areas used by our Cuckoos on their migration are experiencing severe drought this year and we think this may be why Viator failed to successfully complete the desert crossing. We fear that Cookie and Ash have also been affected as it's been so long since we heard from their tags and we suspect we won't receive further signals.

Both Viator and Ash left the Po area and headed further east to Croatia, which is unusual, and could have been because of poor conditions. However, it's extremely likely that the part of Croatia, just over the Adriatic (55 miles form the Po delta), is also suffering from this regional drought.

Previously we've only ever lost two southeasterly migrating birds before completion of the Sahara crossing, both in 2012, and so far it looks like we've lost three this year.