Updates from our Cuckoos

BB is the latest of the Cuckoos to have started moving north-west! He has left Congo and transmissions received yesterday afternoon show that he is now in Cameroon. He is on the border between the East and South regions and has covered 417 km (260 miles) since his previous position.  David, who is also in Cameroon, is 197 km (123 miles) to the north of BB.  

Having been in Cameroon for 2 weeks, new locations received for Chance in the early hours of this morning (25 February) showed he was in Ghana! The best location placed him 67km (41 miles) E of Yegi, a major crossing point on the Volta, although subsequent locations and sensor data suggest that he was probably still moving westwards at that time. This is a movement of more than 1500km (935 miles) almost due west and makes Chance the first of the tagged cuckoos to have arrived in the Ghana/ Ivory Coast region, which all remaining cuckoos used as a pre-Sahara crossing stop-over last spring. 

A new position received on the evening of 20 February shows that David has made another move northwards.  He is still currently in Cameroon but has travelled 97km (60 miles) slightly west of north, and appears to be heading in the direction of Chance’s last transmitted location.  This latest move means that there is 175km (109 miles) separating them now. 

Both Chris and BB remain in Congo, at the north end of the Téké Plateau and have shown no sign of moving north yet. We last received a location for BB’s tag this morning and for Chris's yesterday morning. Currently just 85km (53 miles) separates the two of them.  

A series of locations received early this morning for Lloyd’s tag showed he is on the move too! He has travelled 210km (130 miles) north-west within Democratic Republic of Congo since Saturday 16 February. This appears to be the beginning of his northwards movements and, although it’s only a short movement, suggests that he may well be heading to West Africa like last year’s cuckoos, despite wintering so far east. 

Chance, whose tag last transmitted on the 12 February, is still in the central region of Cameroon. Chance and David are now both in Cameroon, separated by 280km (174 miles).

After a period of silence since 2 February, we received a single new location for David in the early hours of 16 February. This revealed that he had moved 230km (142 miles) south-west from his previous location in the Central African Republic to the East region of Cameroon. He has moved back from the gallery forest – savannah mosaic to a large area of continuous closed canopy forest. He is not far from the villages of Atiek and Moapak and, although the accuracy of the location isn’t great enough to be sure, he appears to be close to the D27 road / track which is the only opening visible on the satellite photo in the forest within about 25km.

Chris, BB and Lloyd have still yet to begin their northwards movements and have all transmitted, from the same positions, in the last few days. Given the pattern seen so far, we may expect to lose transmissions for a few days as they feed up before they then make their move north. 

There have been no further transmissions from David since the 2 February, just after his big move, however the tag charge was low then. Hopefully it may receive some sunlight soon and charge up enough to transmit his current location. Chance is about 270km (168 miles) away from David's last known location. 

After an absence of a week, yesterday afternoon we received a location for Chance suggesting he had moved 925km (575 miles) NNE into Central African Republic. This is surprising as we would expect him to move north west at this time of year, like David did  a week ago and all the tracked Cuckoos did last year. Although the accuracy of the location was apparently good, we can't verify whether he has in fact moved there because of the possibility that this is a 'mirror location'. The satellite system always produces two possible locations for a tag based on the signals received as a satellite passes overhead and usually, but not always, selects the most sensible one. The alternative location for Chance based on this satellite pass is in Cameroon and makes more sense to us, but until we receive further locations for Chance’s tag, we won’t be able to say for sure. Make sure you check back to see where he next transmits from! 

(Chance's position was updated from Central African Republic to Cameroon. See the later blog post for more information.)