Martin remained on the edge of the Chari River floodplain until late on 24 August. A series of locations extending into 25 August showed him leaving the area to the southeast. By 0550hrs he had settled in an area 160km SE of his previous residency.
Updates from our Cuckoos
Read the latest updates from our Cuckoos on their epic migration between the UK and tropical Africa, or track their movements in real-time on our Cuckoo migration map.
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Martin moves off
24 Aug 2011
Kasper finds good foraging?
24 Aug 2011
Kasper has remained in the area around the Bayan Dutsin Forest Reserve in northern Nigeria since the last update. He has clearly found good foraging conditions – we are interested to see how long he will remain there.
Lyster crosses the desert
24 Aug 2011
We were a little worried as Lysters tag failed to transmit on the 22nd August but today it burst into life. His new location showed that he had crossed the desert and was in northern Senegal. Now that he has become the fifth of our tracked Cuckoos to successfully cross the Sahara, we will be following his next moves closely, in particular to see whether he follows Clement back east towards the other Cuckoos or spends a longer period in West Africa.
Clement continues east
24 Aug 2011
On the 24 August Clement was in central Nigeria, not far from Kaduna, having moved a further 250km ENE since 22 August. Clement has made quite an epic journey eastwards across west Africa and is now as far east as the other Cuckoos who took the ‘traditional’ route down from Italy. We have been amazed by how different a route he has taken to get there.
Awaiting transmission from Lyster shortly
22 Aug 2011
On Saturday morning (20 August) Lyster was still at his Moroccan stop-over. His tag is due to come on very shortly (Monday early evening) so we are awaiting an update with interest….
Clement in Western Nigeria
22 Aug 2011
One week after apparently settling in Burkina Faso, Clement had been on the move again and popped up in Togo! On Friday 19 August we received a series of positions for him just inside the extreme north of Togo, close to the border with Benin. By yesterday evening (Sunday 21 August), however, he had continued his journey to the east and was in western Nigeria, having travelled 500km (312 miles) ESE since Friday and 1025km (640 miles) almost due east since Wednesday.
Clement is now our most southerly Cuckoo, having reached 9.5 degrees N. His rapid easterly movement over the past two weeks mean that the four Cuckoos that have crossed the Sahara are now separated by about 1,500km, compared to the 3,500km soon after they had crossed the desert. It is fascinating that they have taken quite different routes to end up in very similar positions!
Chris stays still
25 Aug 2011
Chris is still stationary in southern Chad. We received an erroneous position for him on Saturday morning (20 August) that placed him in the north-western part of South Sudan (and updated our map at the British Birdfair 2011 to reflect this!) but subsequent locations showed he remained at the location he has been in for most of the time since 25 July.
No movement from Kasper
22 Aug 2011
On Wednesday early morning (17 August) and Sunday evening (21 August) Kasper was still in the Bayan Dutsin Forest reserve in northern Nigeria.
Lyster stops over in North Africa
18 Aug 2011
Lyster is still on the coast of Morocco 20km from Casablanca. A series of locations received between Saturday morning (13 August) and 18 August showed he has been stopping over in an area centred on some artificial pools just outside the town of Had Soualem. He has now been there for over a week and is the first of our Cuckoos to have undertaken a stop-over in North Africa.
Martin stays put
22 Aug 2011
Martin remains on the edge of the Chari River floodplain and we last heard from him on the morning on Thursday 18th August. After the birds had crossed the Sahara we expected them to rest up for a while and Martin has obviously found a good place as he has been in this region since 26 July.
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