Updates from our Cuckoos

Despite Patch's recent westerly movement to Guinea, David may still be the most westerly Cuckoo. Poor quality signals suggest that David continued on from Mali and could be in either Sierra Leone or Guinea. Last year, he was in a very similar location, almost on the Guinea/Sierra Leone border by the 8 April. This was preceeded by a couple of weeks of silence so we can't tell whether he is on schedule or ahead of last year.  We will have to await further signals to confirm his current location and update the map positions.  

From Ghana, Patch continued onwards and by the evening of 31 March he was in Guinea, 1100km (690 miles) further north-west.  He is just to the west of the outer edge of the Guinea Highlands,  a densely forested mountainous plateau which runs from southeastern Guinea through to northern Sierra Leone and Liberia, and northwestern Ivory Coast. 

This new location means that he is in running for the most westerly Cuckoo, however, poor quality signals suggest that David continued on from Mali and could be in either Sierra Leone or Guinea, and possibly further west than Patch. We will have to await further signals to confirm his location. 

David has made a massive most to the west, leaving Cameroon behind and travelling at least 2420km (1500 miles) to a location in Mali by early evening of 28 March. 

Poor quality signals, received on 27 March, from Patch's tag revealed that he had left Cameroon and was on the move.  Those signals located him in Togo and two days later further signals confirmed he had continued on in a westerly direction and was in Ghana. He is just west of Lake Volta, a place where several of our Cuckoos have stopped having moved into west Africa.  

Signals received on 26 March show Whortle has left Cameroon and is now in Ivory Coast having completed a  journey of 2050km (1290 miles).  It’s not clear how long the journey took as we don’t know when he started moving west. His new location is just 6km (4 miles) from both Skinner and Chris’s locations. 

Waller had been in the west of Ivory Coast but has backtracked about 330km (200 miles) in to centre of the country and is now in the protected area of the Parc National d'Abokouamekro, to the west of Lake Kossou, the largest lake in Ivory Coast. Presumably feeding conditions weren't good in his westerly location and so he has moved on to find somewhere more suitable. 

Chris is the most recent Cuckoo to have joined the five others in Ivory Coast! Having been in Ghana until at least the 18 March, he then flew 215km (130 miles) which took him over the border and into Ivory Coast by the 21 March. He is now only 75km (45 miles) from Skinner's location and 70km ( 42 miles) from Ken's location. 

Livingstone had moved further north within Cameroon but the last signal received from this more northerly location was on 12 March. After this we received several low quality signals that revealed he was on the move. His new location popped up on the map yesterday, 19 March, when a good quality signal was finally received, and revealed that he was in Ivory Coast, close to border with Guinea. From the previous signals we can see that he has been in the area since around the 16 March, making him the fourth Cuckoo to move into West Africa. He is now just 20km (12 miles) north-east of Derek. 

Ken had moved 100km (600 miles) by the 14 March and was just inside Ivory Coast. Waller and Derek are also in Ivory Coast, but further to the west.