Updates from our Cuckoos

Signals were received from BB’s tag yesterday morning and reveal that he has remained within Nigeria, in the Oyo district close to the border with Benin, where he has been for more than ten days now.

Lloyd remained at his location in the heart of the Congo Rainforest on Friday (22 March). However, a single unconfirmed location received in the early hours of this morning suggested that he had moved a further 450km (280 miles) NW since then, into north-western Democratic Republic of Congo and at the edge of the continuous rainforest. There were no further locations because the charge on his tag was very low, presumably due to him having spent time under the forest canopy, but we hope to have an update on his location on Wednesday morning. 

Having spent a month in eastern Ghana, by Sunday morning (24 March) Chance had moved 420km (416 miles) west to a location in Cote d’Ivoire (Ivory Coast). He is 40km (24 miles) north of the location that Martin spent 18 days preparing for his Sahara crossing at this time last year, and about 20km (12 miles) south of Comoé NP. As Chance has already spent some time at a stop-over in Ghana, we would expect him to spend less time in this area than Martin did. If timings are similar to last year, we would expect the first bird to head north over the desert during Easter weekend. 

Lloyd has moved on from the position in DRC that he has held for a month – but not by very much! New locations received early this morning show that he has moved 305km (189 miles) NNW since Sunday 17 March. He is in an area of closed-canopy forest in the heart of the Congo basin, about 245km (152 miles) almost due W of Kisangani, close to the border between Equator and Orientale regions. 

Chris has continued moving rapidly westwards and by Saturday morning (16 March) he was apparently settled in Digya National Park, Ghana. He had moved 1075km (667 miles) west in just over 2 days since the previous location in Nigeria. He is the second Cuckoo, following Chance, to make it to Ghana. Although his current location would be a great place for him to carry out his pre-Sahara crossing stop over, last year he did this in Cote d’Ivoire, so it will be interesting to see whether he stops here or carries on west. 

Lloyd remains at the location he has held in Sankuru Nature Reserve, DRC, since 19 Feb. He was by far the latest bird to head south from Europe, making the Sahara crossing in early October, so it is interesting that he is late moving north too. We are still waiting to learn for sure whether he will follow the other Cuckoos, which wintered considerably further west, to West Africa or take a different route north. 

BB has continued moving in an approximately north-westerly direction. A location received in the very early hours of Sunday morning (17 March) showed that he was in south-western Nigeria, close to the border with Benin, about 600km (375 miles) WNW of the location he held on 14 March. As there was only a single location we don’t know if he was moving at the time this latest location was received.

The last transmission received for BB was on 3 March when he was in Cameroon. The newest signal, received yesterday afternoon, shows that he is now approximately 650km ( 400 miles) further NW and has joined Chris in Nigeria.  BB is now in the Akwa Ibom Region of the Niger Delta and is about 290km (180 miles) south of Chris.