Updates from our Cuckoos

By the morning of Sunday 16 September, David had moved 728km (452 miles) ESE from the area in southern Chad that he had been in since 17 August. Although Roy also moved east of south along the border between Chad and Sudan about a week ago, the easterly component of this movement is very surprising – we had expected him to move SW towards the area of southern Chad that several of the other Cuckoos are either in or passed through on their way to the wintering area in the western Congo basin last winter. It will be really fascinating to see where he goes next – will he (and Roy) head to completely different wintering grounds to last year’s birds?

BB has leap-frogged over all of the other tracked Cuckoos in Africa and goes from being the most northerly of them to the most southerly! On 13 September he was still at his position close to the border between Chad and Sudan but by the afternoon of Saturday 15 September he was 426km (265 miles) SW of here, in Guera Prefecture in southern Chad. That evening he headed off in a SW-erly direction again and when the last location was received in the early hours of 16 September he was 276km (171 miles) further on, in Tanjile Region. It will be interesting to see how much further he has got when his tag starts transmitting again tomorrow morning (18 September) – the last location placed him about 180km (112 miles) from the border with Central African Republic. Will he be the first tracked Cuckoo to make it there this year?

Indy was still in the same area of tiger bush on 14 September. By the afternoon of Sunday 16 September, however, he had moved 180km (112 miles) E to a position 24km (15 miles) east of Damboa in Borno region. At dusk that evening, however, he moved on again and by the time the last two locations were received around midnight, he was another 50km (31 miles) to the east. These placed him 35km (22 miles) WNW of Gwoza and about 45km (28 miles) from the border with Cameroon. Indy appears to be heading for southern Chad, where several of the tracked Cuckoos have been recently and where several of last year’s birds passed through before heading south to the Congo basin.

Since we last received a location for Wallace in northern Italy (9 September) we have received two unconfirmed locations that suggest he has left Italy in a SE direction and may be taking a route east of the Adriatic. This would make him the third Cuckoo to do so, following David and Roy. The charge on his tag was very low when the last one was received on Friday 14 September so we may have to wait a while before he pops up somewhere else and we get a better idea of his movements.

There have been no movements of note from our Cuckoos in the last few days. Transmissions have been received from Indy and Chance today and Lloyd, David, Wallace, Roy, BB and Chris in the last few days. Hopefully there will be more to report after the weekend! 

By the early morning of 7 September Roy was already 141km (88 miles) south of his previous location and was moving SE along the border between Chad and Sudan. By mid-morning on 9 September he had covered a further 251km (156 miles) and was in southern Sudan, 50km east of the border with Central African Republic and 106km (66 miles) north of the world's newest country, South Sudan. Like Indy, he is slowly moving south into less arid areas, following the band of rains produced by the Inter-Tropical Convergence Zone as it moves south. 

From his position just inside the Nigerian Border, Indy had moved 204km (127 miles) SE into the Yobe state by the evening of 9 September.  His current location is 35km (22 miles) east of Potiskum, in what appears to be an area of what is known as tiger bush, where scrubby woodland is interspersed with bands of un-vegetated rock . As expected, he is moving slowly into areas of higher annual rainfall, following the band of rains that is moving south as autumn progresses. 

Locations received from Lloyd’s tag on 31 Aug still place him in west Italy. There has been no further information on Iolo but both Indy and Davids’ tags have transmitted in the last few days. David is still in Chad whilst Indy remains in northern Nigeria.  

We have received nothing further from Mungo since the 2 August.

We have received signals from both BB and Roys' tags which show that they remain in the east of Chad, close to the border with Sudan. They are just 48 km (30 miles) apart and are the two most northerly of the tracked Cuckoos in Chad.