Updates from our Cuckoos

Having wondered yesterday whether Chris would stop-over in Sicily we have our answer – no! But amazingly, just a week since he was last in Belgium, locations received last night (16/17 July) indicate he was in the latter stages of his Sahara crossing. He was in the Tenéré Desert, a vast expanse of sandy desert in eastern Niger. The locations place him about 500km (310 miles) north of Lake Chad. Last year Clement, the first Cuckoo to cross the desert, did so from 14 July so, assuming Chris left Sicily in the evening of 15 July, the timing of his crossing is very similar.

This remarkable development means that Chris has now moved about 3,800km (2,360 miles) since we last received a location for him in Belgium ten days ago (7 July). We don’t know precisely when he left there but we received unconfirmed locations for him in northern Italy on 12 July and Sicily on 15 July so clearly he has not made any significant stop-overs other than the one in Belgium. He spent about a month there after leaving the UK (except for a short round-trip to the south) so presumably this is where he did the majority of his preparation for the desert crossing – check back in two days to see if he has managed to complete his amazing marathon from northern Europe to the savannahs south of the Sahara.

Chris Hewson visited Wildlife Aid near Leatherhead on Saturday to remove the tag from Idemili and check on her condition. She was still very light - weighing only 71g - but this was apparently an increase of 1g from the previous day so some small progress is being made! Hopefully she will continue to make progress.

You can read more in the patient updates here. 

Having spent some time in Provence, we had suspected that Lloyd would use the western route through Iberia to reach Africa, as Clement had last year. His movement east into Italy by Friday 13 July was therefore unexpected – but not so much as what followed!

By Sunday 15 July Lloyd had moved north – this was not so surprising as last year Chris moved north back into the Po watershed after apparently ‘overshooting’ it to a similar location that Lloyd was in, presumably finding conditions unsuitable this far south. What was surprising was how far north Lloyd moved – the locations received on Sunday placed him just north of the town of Bolzano in the Alps of northern Italy, 345km (208 miles) almost due N of his previous position in Tuscany. It’s very interesting that Lloyd has gone as far as the Alps rather than stopping in the Po watershed as we might have expected. We have noticed that the Po watershed appears to be a bit less important this year, with a few Cuckoos spending time just outside it - could conditions there be less suitable this year for some reason?

There has been no movement for three of the Cuckoos tagged in Wales over the past week, with David still stopping over in Montenegro and Iolo and Indy doing likewise in the Po watershed. Lloyd, however, has been up to some very odd movements – see his blog for further details.

Having reached southern Germany by 10 July, Roy continued to press on and by 13 July he was in the state of Carinthia in southern Austria. By 15 July he was settled a few kms north of Millstätter See, giving a total onward movement of 245km (153 miles) SSE form his position in Germany.

With the exception of Roy, there has been little recent movement by the Cuckoos tagged in Scotland - Wallace remains in Ayrshire; BB remains in north-eastern Italy; Mungo remains in Switzerland close to Mont Blanc; Chance remains just south of Berlin.

Reacher remains on the French Mediterranean coast close to Perpignan whilst John remains in the Lorraine region of northern France.  

Chris has made very rapid progress over the past few days. Having been still near Antwerp on 7 July, an unconfirmed location on Thursday 12 July placed him in the Po watershed, near the river Po itself NE of Parma. We assumed he would be set in for a prolonged stop-over in preparation for his Sahara crossing but the expected confirmation of this location never came. Instead, we received a series of locations on Sunday 15 July that he had passed straight over mainland Italy and had stopped in Sicily! It will be very interesting to see if he carries out a stop-over and successfully crosses the desert from here as it will already be very dry here at this stage of the summer.

Having been close to Montpellier on 12 July, Lyster was next picked up on the Spanish-French border 15km (9 miles) east of Andorra in the evening of 14 July. Unconfirmed locations (that won’t show on the map) suggested he had continued migrating that night and by the end of the night he was 70km (43 miles) WSW from here in north-eastern Spain. This is confirmation that Lyster is taking the westerly route into Africa through Iberia, as he did last year.

From his position close to Marseille, Lloyd has crossed over to the west coast of Italy. A transmission this morning showed him 418km (260 miles) from his previous location, and locates him south-east of the city of Pisa, close to the communes of Pecioli and Lajatico.