Updates from our Cuckoos

Since our last update Nussey has flown a further 20 km (13 miles) north and is now close to the town of Escource in Nouvelle-Aquitaine in southwestern France. Having already been to Africa, he has regressed to being our most northerly Cuckoo! 

An update from Valentine at 19:40 last night (Wednesday July 17) showed that he had completed his crossing of the Mediterranean and was in the High Atlas mountains in central Morocco. By 22:57 last night he had flown 737 km (458 miles) from his last stop over site in southern Spain and was near Iriqui National Park, in the Atlas mountains close to the border with Algeria. Interestingly he was just 4.8 km (3 miles) from the spot where Nottingham Cuckoo Bill perished in April 2017 (Bill's tag is still transmitting).  It'll be interesting to see whether Valentine pushes on across the desert from here. 

During the evening of Sunday July 14 Tennyson was near Perpignan in southern France and by 19:00 that evening he had crossed into northern Spain, and was 85 km (53 miles) north west of Barcelona. The next time we heard from Tennyson was at 08:00 on Wednesday July 17, when he was crossing the Sahara, having covered 1,920 km (1,193 miles) from Spain to the Tassili-N-Ajjer Desert portion of the Sahara in south-central Algeria.  The last signal received from Tennyson's tag arrived at 20:17 last night (July 17) showing that he had made it as far as Northern Niger, having flown 2,496 km (1,550 miles) in just over 72 hours, at an average speed of 34.6 kpH (21.5 mph). When we next hear from Tennyson we will hopefully see that he has become the first of our tagged Cuckoos to successfully conquer the Sahara in 2019! 

An update from Lambert's tag late in the afternoon of July 13 showed that he had flown 420 km (262 miles) south east and was close to Notre-Dame-de-la-Rouviere in southern France. He has since settled a couple of miles east of that location, near the small village of Valniere in the Cevennes National Park. He is 53 Km (33 miles) north of Montpelier and is in the same location that he stopped in last year. Last year he left this location on July 25 so we don't expect him to hang around for long. 

By the morning of July 13 Valentine had crossed the Pyrenees and was in northern Spain 19 km (11 miles) east of Barbastro. By 7 pm on July 15 he had flown a further 610 km (379 miles) south and was just north of Benahadux in Andalucia, Spain. The last signal received from Valentine came in at 10 pm last night when he appeared to be 65 km (40 miles) out over the Mediterranean on a heading for the Cape of Three Forks in northern Morocco. We'll have to await the next data transmission to see whether Valentine will become the second of our Cuckoos to reach Africa this year. 

Having flown 382 km (237 miles) south west from his last location south of Paris, Knepp is now near Mirambeau in the Nouvelle-Aquitaine region in southwestern France.

Over the last 48 hours Valentine has flown 456km (284 miles) south west to his new location near Marmande in south-western France. 

Since undertaking his remarkable 1,200km U-turn Nussey has continued to move north, albeit at a more sedate pace. Over the last few days he has flown a further 111 km (69 miles) north-east up the French coast to his current location near Lesperon, 29 km (18 miles) north of Dax. 

Data received from Larry's tag at 5am this morning showed that he had left his last known location in Croatia and flown 412 km (256 miles) south to southern Italy. He is now 80 km (50 miles) east of Naples, between Lioni and Vallata. Larry was tagged in 2015 and based on his movements in previous years we might expect him to stay in Italy until late July/early August when he is likely to fly directly across the Sahara to a stopover site in Chad.