Updates from our Cuckoos

It was beginning to look like Sherwood might never leave the beach in Senegal but on 29 September he began the journey east in earnest. In the last three weeks he has travelled through Senegal, Mali, the northern tip of Guinea, Burkina Faso, Ghana and Togo and onwards into Benin, a distance of 2,239km (1,391 miles). He is currently just tom the south of Tokou in an area of open country with scattered small trees, and the temperature is around 31 degrees C in light south-easterly winds, perfect conditions for an onward flight.

Having spent a couple of weeks in Ghana, Selborne moved east on 7 October, flying back across Togo and Benin. During the next two days he moved south and east within Nigeria and is currently on the coast of the Bight of Bonny in the south-eastern corner of the country, to the north of James Town. Since leaving Ghana he has flown just over 1,200km (just under 700 miles).

Raymond is currently our most westerly Cuckoo, and although he has moved north he is still in Burkina Faso, just to the north of the Po Forest in an area of fairly open country scattered with small trees. It is currently 30 degrees C with light south-westerly winds, which should be ideal if he decides to begin his journey east.

Having spent almost six weeks in eastern Nigeria, PJ has now moved and is in northern Cameroon, in an area of wet forest to the north of the town of Dir. It will be interesting to see how long he stays here before moving south. In 2016 he headed south on 15 October and in 2017 on the 13th.

Having reported on 27 September that Larry was settled in Chad we then received a single location from his tag on 30 September showing that he had moved and was in Congo, just to the north of the Teke plateau. We haven't heard from his tag since. Looking at some of the data we receive from the tag, we can see that he was alive when we last heard from him but that the battery charge was very low. We hope that it is just a case of him being underneath the canopy of the forest and that the solar panel on the tag isn't getting much sunlight. Fingers crossed, he will 'pop-up' once the battery gets a better charge.

Since beginning his journey east, Lambert hasn't hung around. Having arrived in southwest Nigeria on 27 September he only stayed for three days. From here he moved to Cameroon for a five day stopover and then on to Congo. During this time he has flown over 1,300km (800 miles), through Nigeria, Cameroon and Central African Republic to get to Congo. He is currently in an area of very dense rainforest in the northwest corner of the country.

Two weeks ago Knepp made his move east and south out of Nigeria. During this time he has covered a distance of over 1,300km (800 miles) to reach Gabon, where he has joined three more of our tagged Cuckoos, Victor, Bowie and Robinson. All four Cuckoos are within a 20 mile radius of each other in an area of dense rainforest.

During the last week or so Carlton II has begun to move east, first to just over the border and into Niger and then a little further into Niger. He is currently in the Dagida Game Reserve, 30km (19 miles) from the border with Benin.

We haven't heard from Cameron for the last 15 days but his last two signals on the 3 October show that he was still alive at that time. We are always concerned when we don't hear from our Cuckoos but we have learned that we do 'lose' some of them for varying periods of time, often because they have moved under the canopy of the forest. Fingers crossed this is the case with Cameron and we hear from him soon.

Bowie is settled in Gabon for the time being and we are receiving locations from his tag; we last heard from him during the early evening on 16 October. He is frequenting an area of dense rainforest in eastern central Gabon.