Updates from our Cuckoos

From northern Gabon, Victor has moved to eastern Gabon, travelling 270km (170 miles). He is now close to Mbay and the Mwagne National Park. Last year at this time he was in Cameroon where he remained until 26 October. He then went on to Angola, where we saw him spend last winter. 

PJ has continued quickly onwards flying 290km (180 miles) in an easterly direction which has taken him into the Central African Republic. He is still just north of the Congo Basin area. 

By the 8 October, Peckham had traveled to a location 32km(20 miles) south-east of Milan, Italy, having flown around 245km (150 miles) from his previous location in Switzerland. If he makes it to Africa from here, he will be the latest arrival to Africa of all the tracked Cuckoos since the project began. The previous record was 3 October. Hopefully he is not too late to complete his journey successfully and become a record breaker for the project. 

From Niger, PJ has traveled 1390km (860 miles) south east to Cameroon! He is just south of the Mbam et Djerem National Park and almost in the Congo Basin area, which covers the southern half of Cameroon and spans across six countries - Cameroon, Central African Republic, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Republic of the Congo, Equatorial Guinea and Gabon. We expect him to move south into the Congo Basin over the next few weeks. 
 

A signal on 22 September shows Peckham continued on his way south from his last locations in Belgium and then France to reach Switzerland where he has remained for at least a couple of days. He is north-west of Stockholm, on the southern edge of the Gantrisch Nature Park, a mountainous area which includes many lakes. He also visited Switzerland in 2015, although was further to the north-east. He's still got a way to go to reach his wintering grounds but at least he is on his way! 

Mr Conkers has headed eastwards to Guinea and on to Mali.

A new signal from Boris's tag on 18 September places him in Senegal roughly 600km (350 miles) south west from his last location in Mauritania.  He is just south of the Senegal River and close to the town of Dagana. 

A series of signals show Peckham is finally moving south. The last good signal showed him over the Ardennes Mountains in the south of Belgium but further locations of poorer quality indicate he continued on into northern France.

We've been following Peckham for a number of years and can see by the 20 September in both 2015 and 2016, Peckham was already in Africa and as far south as Chad. His journey this year has varied considerably from these!

He was one of the latest to arrive in Africa last year, with the first transmission received from Africa on 9 September. Throughout the project only three birds have arrived later than this, with two in mid-September and Lloyd, one of our Welsh birds tagged in 2012, not transmitting from Africa until 3 October that year. 

Despite arriving late last year his onward journey to reach Chad was fairly quick. Hopefully conditions will be favourable on the way south. We hope we will soon see him in Africa, all being well. 

Selborne has traveled 480km (almost 300 miles) south east  from his last postition in Benin and is now in Nigeria.  This is almost exactly on schedule as per 2016. Last year he arrived in Nigeria on 23 September, remaining here until early October when he moved on to Equatorial Guinea briefly and then Gabon. 

Nicholas and Kidmans' tags both last sent transmissions from Italy in July. However nothing has been received since. It seems that the tags aren't charging so we do not know if they remain in Italy or have moved on. Peckham is still as far north as Belgium so it could be that Nicholas and Kidman have also yet to move further south.  At this stage we have nothing to suggest that anything has happened to these Cuckoos and we hope to hear from them again.