Updates from our Cuckoos

On Saturday morning (28 July) Wallace was still in Picardie but according to a series of unconfirmed locations, by the early hours of this morning (30 July) he had moved 390km (243 miles) ESE to a location in extreme south-western Germany. If these prove to be correct, he is approximately 23km (13 miles) NE of the Petite Camargue Alsacienne - a research station in the south-eastern corner of France where Valentin Amrhein and his group from University of Basel have undertaken exciting research on the function of Nightingale song. He appears to be in a forested landscape to the east of the river valley containing the Nightingales.

Having had the opportunity to scrutinise the data from the past few days, we can confirm that Indy does indeed appear to have been over the Mediterranean Sea, south of Sicily and only 154km (95 miles) from the coast of Libya, early in the morning of Monday 23 July.  Locations received in the first few hours after dawn suggest that he was heading ENE and then due N – back towards Italy – at that time. We know Indy would have encountered a strong headwind if he was originally heading south at this time, so he may turned north in reaction to this when finding himself over the sea and out of sight of land at dawn, presumably having assessed his body fuel reserves as being inadequate. However, we can’t rule out the possibility he may have been returning north having previously made landfall in Libya or Tunisia. Certainly at this time of year there will be few re-fuelling opportunities in North Africa east of the Atlas Mountains.

Over the past few days we have received a confusing series of locations for Indy, which are difficult to make sense of because the large potential errors associated with them.  Having received locations on Monday 23 July suggesting that Indy was over the Mediterranean, south-east of Sicily, we then received locations for him on Wednesday 25 July that suggested he was on the west coast of Italy, northwest of Rome. It is not clear whether Indy has really flown south and then re-traced his steps but we should be able to find out later today when his tag starts transmitting again.

From Sicily, Mungo continued southwards, across the Mediterranean Sea to Libya where we received several unconfirmed locations. However, a confirmed signal, received yesterday afternoon, revealed that he had finished his desert crossing and is now north of Lake Chad. He has is only around 125km (77miles) north-west of where Chris is located.

Lake Chad is an important area for migrants and, it seems, our Cuckoos Mungo and Chris are no exception. It is a large inland freshwater lake that is under severe threat. It has shrunk by as much as 90% since the 1960s due to climate change and water extraction.

John has continued his migration in idiosyncratic style! Having been just southwest of the Jura last Friday (20 July), by Sunday 22 July he was in Catalonia, so becoming the fourth of our tracked Cuckoos (after Clement, Lyster and Reacher) to take a south-westerly route into Spain. His tag transmitted for longer than the planned ‘ON’ period so we were able to follow what happened next - and that evening he moved off west, ending up 120km (75 miles) WNW of here, on wooded slopes in the Pyrenees close to the French border, by the next morning. As if this wasn’t strange enough, locations received on Wednesday 25 July showed he had continued along this trajectory, had crossed the Pyrenees completely and was just inside Landes region of southern France, a few kms ENE of Bayonne.

This movement appears very unusual, both because of the 90 degree change in direction to NW and because he has re-crossed an apparent barrier (the Pyrenees) at an oblique angle. There doesn’t appear to have been any unusual weather etc in the area when he arrived in Catalonia so it’s not clear why John has behaved like this. Where will he go next?

Wallace remains in the region of Picardie, but has moved a small distance in a south-easterly direction. He is now 11km ( 7miles) south of Tergnier and less than 1 km away from ‘Circuit de Folembray’ racetrack. He is presumably resting up from his long flight from Scotland.

Roy moved west from Austria into northern Italy on the evening of 25 July. He has travelled around 192 km (119 miles) and is in a wooded area close to a the comunes of Weitental and Margen. Will he stop and feed up here or move straight through?

BB crossed the Mediterranean Sea and, by early yesterday evening, had made it to Egypt! His tag transmission showed him close to the border with Libya and it looks like he was continuing southwards when the transmissions ended. BB's movement into Egypt makes him our easternmost Cuckoo yet and the first to transmit from over Egypt. 

The last transmissions received on the 20 July were of an 'unconfirmed' nature but indicate that David remains in Montenegro. He has been here since the 27 June so we might expect him to make a move shortly.

We received a tag transmission from Reacher in Perpignan, France on the 21 July but the next signals on the eve of the 23 July and early on the 24 revealed that Reacher had continued south and into Spain. He travelled around 857km (532 miles) from his previous poistion and was close to Granada in the Sierra Nevada Mountain region in Andulusia.