Updates from our Cuckoos

Around mid-afternoon on 31 August PJ's tag showed that he was crossing the desert and was about a third of the way across. We will have to wait until 3 August to see if he makes it. The winds in this part of the desert are currently from the southeast but much lighter than they have been. If he maintains his course he will arrive on the southern edge of the desert in Niger or Nigeria. The winds in the southern part of the desert are quite strong from the east right now and it might be that he gets drifted a little way to the west during the latter part of the crossing.

Lambert's tag shows he has made it across the desert and is in Senegal. His crossing coincided with strong easterly winds and it looks like these pushed him quite a way west. He is currently 50km (30 miles) from the Senegal coast and just to the north of the Saloum River. He is the furthest west we have seen any of our Cuckoos. 

Cameron has moved another 550km (340 miles) into Nigeria. He is currently to the north of the Lame Burra Game Reserve in northern central Nigeria.

Around 5pm on 28 July Larry's tag showed that he had successfully crossed the desert. He is currently around 200km (125 miles) north of the stopover site he used in southern Chad in 2015, 2016 and 2017.

Around 5.30am on 30 July, we received the first of four locations from Lambert's tag that showed he was actively crossing the Sahara. The last location received at just after 7am showed he was in northwestern Mauritania and about a third of the way across the desert; this should show on his map when it updates tomorrow. We will have to wait until breakfast on 1 August to see if he has made it across. There are fairly stiff north-easterly winds in this part of the desert and Lambert does seem to be drifting west towards Western Sahara. It will be interesting to see just how far west he is on completing the crossing.

Having spent 19 days in Spain, close to the Portuguese border, Knepp has now headed south. On the evening of 28 July his tag showed that he had crossed the Straits of Gibraltar and was in Morocco. He is currently in the Rif Mountains to the east of Chefchaouen.

Robinson's tag shows that he is across the desert and is northeast of Lake Chad. His tag powered-up 24 hours earlier than we were expecting, presumably the result of the solar panel on the tag getting plenty of sunshine during the crossing.

He began his desert flight from the Libyan coast around 8.00am on 25 July, by 9.00pm on the same day he was halfway across. His tag powered-up again just before 10.00am on 26 July, showing he was 805km (500 miles) further south and west and heading towards Lake Chad. The last location from his tag was just before 5.00pm on the same day; he was just 69km (43 miles) from the lake.

We were getting quite concerned about Larry. Having not heard from his tag for 11 days we were beginning to fear the worst but did also consider that the battery that powers his tag might not be getting a very good charge. The island of Cres, his stopover site in Croatia, is very wooded and he was almost certainly spending time under the canopy feeding. However, we now know that Larry is alive and well and crossing the Sahara.

Larry is on his fourth migration since he was fitted with his tag in 2015. he seems to time his desert crossing for the last week in July, and is normally on the southern edge of the desert in the first few days of August. This year he seems to be timing things perfectly again. His tag stopped transmitting around breakfast on 26 July, it will be powered down for 48 hours to allow the solar panel to charge the onboard battery and then power up again around breakfast on 28 July. It will be interesting to see where he is when this happens.

Locations received from Robinson's tag during the late evening of 25 July showed that he was in the middle of his desert crossing. We will now have to wait until late on 27 July to see if he has been successful. The winds over the desert currently look favourable for helping him on his way.

We were getting quite concerned about Lambert. He didn't move about very much at his stopover site in southern France and we have lost Cuckoos in this area before. However, late on the evening of 25 July Lambert popped up in northeast Morocco, on the edge of the Tazekka National Park, an area of wooded mountains in the Middle Atlas. This was a surprise to us as we thought that Lambert would take the eastern route through Italy, not the western route.