Updates from our Cuckoos

Larry has moved a further 280km (175 miles) northwards within Congo. He is now in the Odzala-Kokoua National Park, an area that Victor has just left. This is an area that Larry didn't use on the first migration we followed but discovered when heading south in October 2016, and again made use of for a few weeks in February 2017 on his northward migration, before heading into Cameroon. 

Signals received yesterday show that Selborne had indeed been busy winging his way to West Africa - all the way to the Ivory Coast!

He covered around 2115km (1315 miles) between 29 January (his last signal in Gabon) and 7 February. He is very close to the border with Guinea and is in the Guinea Highlands area, a densely forested mountainous plateau extending from central Guinea through northern Sierra Leone and Liberia to western Ivory Coast. He is currently just east of the area in Guinea in which he spent a few days in last year before then venturing further to the forests in the south of Guinea. 

Last year he embarked on his desert crossing towards the end of March, having spent time in and around the border of Guinea and Ivory Coast, feeding up and gaining reserves for the mammoth task ahead of him. He is the first of our tagged Cuckoos to move into West Africa this year and may be the first to embark on his desert crossing - though it doesn't always work out this way. We'll have to wait and see!  

Two more Cuckoos have begun their journeys northwards from their wintering locations. From Angola, Larry has flown 675km (420 miles) north east to Central Congo.He is now to the north-east of Okoyo. This is similar to what he has done in the previous two years, before moving into Cameroon and then on to west Africa. In the first year he then made his desert crossing from Nigeria, but in the second year that we tracked him he went much further west - crossing the desert from Guinea! What will he do this year?

Selborne has also headed north and is now in northern Gabon, close to the coast, and the Reserva Natural del Estuario del Muniborder, a Wetland of International Importance. He is just south of the border with Equatorial Guinea, and has travelled 350km (218 miles) from his previous location.

New signals on the afternoon of 22 January show that PJ was continuing northwards and had made it 800km (just under 500 miles) north from Gabon to reach Cameroon. He is just north of the Mbam et Djerem National Park. 

Selborne has made a small movement north within Gabon of about 95km (60 miles) to an area he visited last year, just south of Waka National Park. Last year he moved north again towards the end of January and was in Ghana by January 31 so it might not be too long before we see some big northward movements from him and our other Cuckoos, into west Africa. 

PJ is already on the move northwards. From Angola on the 22 January, he travelled 755km (470 miles) in a north-easterly direction to get back to Gabon by the evening of 26 December. In 2016/17 his behaviour was similar, heading north from Angola to the centre of the Republic of Congo in the second week of January and moving on again north by the end of January. It's the beginning of his long journey home.

By the early morning of January 1, Peckham had arrived in Gabon, 570km (355 miles) south-west from his last location in the Central African Republic. His new location in the Haut-Ogooue region is just 55km (35 miles) away from PJ who has moved north from Angola, where he has spent some of this winter. Peckham has spent the last two winters in and and around this area in Gabon so we don't expect much further movement from him, now that he is in his wintering grounds.

Peckham has moved on from southern Chad where he has spent the last seven or so weeks and has journeyed 460km (295 miles). He is in the Mambere-Kadei region. In previous years he has continued on during December to the Congo Basin area and into Gabon. We are very pleased that despite his very late migration this year he is now close to the heart of the rainforest. Well done Peckham! 

Since 27 November Victor has journeyed 265km (170 miles) south within Gabon by the early hours of the 29 November.  He is now just south-east of Bongoville.