Updates from our Cuckoos

At 04.28 on 22 March David was still in Cameroon but by 14.59 on 24 March he had moved 1923km (1195 miles) west, and was in Ivory Coast, just north of Bouake. He covered this distance in 45.5 hours, averaging a speed of 42km per hour (26 mph). It will be interesting to see how long he stays where he is to allow him to recover after such a mammoth journey.

Derek's continued west and covered another 550km (340 miles) to reach his new location in Ivory Coast. He is about 60km (35 miles) north-east of Ash and 105km (65 miles) north of David's new location. All in all there are six Cuckoos in Ivory Coast currently. 

From the northern edge of the forest in Cameroon, Derek had moved to Ghana by 19 March, travelling 1400km (915 miles).

Chester has left his location in Gabon and travelled 745km (460 miles) north-west to  Nigeria, where he appears to be on the outskirts of the Afi Mountain Wildlife Sanctuary, in the Cross River area.  

By 16 March, Emsworthy had left Central African Republic and made it to Ghana. He covered 2070km (1285 miles). He continued on into Ivory Coast by the 19 March, joining Ash, Stanley and Livingstone there. 

We suspected Livingstone might rest up near Lake Volta to recover from his  journey but instead he continued 790km (490 miles) west fairly quickly to make it to Ivory Coast by 17 March.  Since the 12 March he has flown over 2500km (1,600 miles) over 8 days.  He is now the second most westerly Cuckoo, taking into account Hennah who is not shown on the map. 

Ash had moved on from Ghana and continued on to Ivory Coast by the end of February. By the 2nd March he moved 150km (96 miles) north-west and was close to Bouake, the second largest city in Ivory Coast. 

David has moved west, leaving Central African Republic (CAR) behind and travelling 515km (320 miles) south-west to Cameroon. This is very similar timing to last year when he made the move from CAR to Cameroon on 13 March, before then moving to Mali by the end of March. Will he do the same again this year? 

The last signals from Jake's tag were back in mid-January when he was in Congo but recently received signals mean that he is back on the map and all appears to be well. He, like several of the other Cuckoos, has travelled west. His last location was in Benin, close to the border with Togo, in West Africa.   

At 00.27am on 15 March, Livingstone's tag transmitted from Cameroon. Over the next 18 hours he went on to fly over Nigeria, Benin and Togo to reach Ghana by 18.00pm on the same day. This mammoth trip is roughly 1450km (915 miles) long which means he was probably travelling at an average speed of just under 50mph!

He probably started off from his previous position in Central African Republic earlier that night, several hours before the first location in Cameroon, which makes the total flight about 1750km in about 22 hours. The last bit (from western Nigeria onwards) was done in the daytime, which is very unusual when Cuckoos aren't crossing the desert.

He is now north of Lake Volta, where he will likely spend some time feeding up and recovering from this incredible journey.