Updates from our Cuckoos

Derek may have been the last of our tagged Cuckoos to leave the UK, but he is far from being the last Cuckoo to arrive in Africa.

From Spain he headed across the Mediterannean Sea to reach Algeria by 7 August and continued onwards further south to finish his desert crossing by the 11 August in Burkina Faso. He has covered over 3200km (2000 miles) in 10 days and taken just 3 weeks since leaving the UK to make it to a location south of the Sahara! His longest stopover was in Spain. This is probably one of the fastest journeys we have seen any of our tagged Cuckoos make since the project began.

From Montenegro it appears that David then travelled down to Greece and made his crossing to Libya, Africa from here. Poor quality signals on the 4 August show him travelling through the Libyan desert and by the early hours of 9 August he had completed his crossing and made it safely to southern Chad. 

By the 2 August, Waller had moved south into Tuscany and it was from here that he decided to cross to Africa, transmitting from Libya around midday on 6 August! He is the second Scottish Cuckoo to make it to Africa this summer. The last signal received showed he had made some progress south within Libya but still had a way to go to complete his crossing of the desert. 

In previous years, we've seen Chris be one of the first tagged Cuckoos in Africa but this year he seems to be on a much more relaxed schedule. His previous arrival dates in Africa were 23 July, 16 July and 24 July but right now he is still currently in Italy! It will be interesting to see whether this affects the rest of his journey or whether he just does the same route in a more leisurely fashion.  

Livingstone arrived in Africa on time this year, in fact a few days earlier than last year when he arrived on 31 July. This time he transmitted from Libya on 27 July before heading south through Niger and then heading east into Chad, in a very similar fashion to last year. 

The first indication Ash was on his way was late on 31 July when a location was received just off the coast of Croatia in the Adriatic sea. A few days later, on the 2 August, he was in Libya. From here he went south to Chad and signals received today show him close to the locations of Livingstone, Hennah and Peter. 

Stanley has made it across the desert. It appears that he left his location in western Italy and flew across the Mediterrannean sea to reach Libya on 29 July. Signals received on the afternoon of 31 July show him in southern Niger, where he has remained since. 

Skinner has embarked on his desert crossing. He has made good progress, having left Spain late on 30 July and travelling over the Atlas mountains in the early hours of the 31, he made his way south over Algeria and by the 2 August he was in Mali. However he appears to have grounded here and signals received today show him still in the same location, which from the satellite images, may not be as barren as other parts. Hopefully he will continue onwards shortly and make it safely across. 

This year, because there are so many Cuckoos and routes to view on the map, individual birds only show by default if there has been a signal in the last 10 days.

Currently Gowk, Gilbert, Meavy, Waller and BB have all stopped being shown by default as we haven't heard from them in this period. Don't worry, it doesn't necessarily mean anything bad has happened. There are often periods where the Cuckoos are in dense undergrowth, where the tags don't receive enough light to charge or send signals to the satellites, often just before and after big movements.

You can still view these Cuckoos on the map by ticking the box underneath their pictures. Once we receive a signal, they will automatically reappear on the main map. 

Cuckoo 134955 has finally crosed the desert. He remained in Morroco until around 28 July but by 1 August he he was on his way south. Signals received on 2 August show he had made it safely across the expanse and was in Senegal.