Updates from our Cuckoos

 As of two days ago Lyster was back in the Broads, just west of Acle. He really is covering a lot of ground, presumably in search of female cuckoos. Anecdotal evidence suggests that females are in short supply at the moment.

 We still haven't recieved anything from Kasper. Whilst it is looking grim, we still haven't given up hope.

 Since arriving back in the UK, Lyster has been anything but laggard. Having covered a large area of the Broads, as of yesterday, he was near to the Norfolk/Suffolk border, 6km (3.7 miles) to the west of Diss. He is now 40km (25 miles) south west of where the BTO/BBC team found him in the Broads.

As of yesterday, Chris was still on the banks of the River Lark, near to Mildenhall, Suffolk. He seems to have settled in this area and not chosen to head north into Thetford Forest to the site that he was tagged a year ago.

 We still haven't heard from Kasper, and whilst we are beginning to fear the worst we still haven't given up hope. On January 6, whilst in southern Congo, we lost Kasper for a month before he popped up on 7 February in the north west tip of Congo, close to the border with Cameroon. 

 At 05.46 this morning, Lyster was in a small patch of woodland on the south east edge of Chedgrave in the Norfolk Broads. He is 16km south of his previous location near Ranworth. It is amazing just how much ground he has covered since he arrived in the Broads.

Chris's tag is due to come back online today. The last signals recieved on 8 May showed that he was still south west of Barton Mills and Mildenhall, Suffolk. He is 16km south east of his original tagging site at Santon Downham. He seems to be focussing on patches of isolated woodland on the south bank of the River Lark.

Data received from Chris' tag yesterday shows a location of Thetford Forest, the site where Chris was tagged in June 2011. In the eleven months and 10,000 miles since he was last in Norfolk, Chris has been followed by thousands of well-wishers. The drama of his journey is only matched by how much he, and his comrades, have taught us about Cuckoo migration, neatly summarised here.

With Chris having been heading slowly northwards towards the Alps at the weekend and with conditions favourable for onward migration, we were keenly anticipating the resumption of transmissions from his tag. Locations received early on Tuesday morning (1 May) showed that he was between Epping and Chipping Ongar in Essex! This places him about 5km (3 miles) east of Epping Forest.  He had migrated 950km (592 miles) in a north-westerly direction during the previous 48 hours.

We had been mildly concerned over the low temperature of Lyster’s tag, at the time we received the one location from south of Paris late on Friday. This, however, gave way to relief yesterday morning when his tag began transmitting again and locations showed he was in Norfolk!  He had moved 530km (330 miles) almost due north since late on Friday.  The sensor data from his tag indicate he was probably actively migrating at the time the Paris location was received.  Since he was last in Algeria (25 April) he has moved approximately 1880km (1170 miles) almost due north in less than 5 days.