Updates from our Cuckoos

During the late evening on 13 July, locations received from Cuckoo 161322 showed that he had left Italy and was heading out across the Mediterranean. As the night and early morning of the next day unfolded it became clear that he had embarked on an incredible journey. At 10.30pm he was 15km (9 miles) from the French coast close to the Illes de Hyeres and heading south.

The next location we received was at 7.30am on the morning of the 15 July. At this time he was over the sea, 45km (28 miles) north of Algiers and the North African coast. An hour later he was 65km (40 miles) to the west and flying parallel to the coast, albeit 30 miles out. At 8.40am he had turned north and was heading back out into the Mediterranean sea, only to turn west again and head in the direction of mainland Spain. By 10.30am he was midway between Algiers on the North African coast and Guardamar del Segura, near Murcia on the Spanish coast. He maintained this course and by noon was 54km (33 miles) from the Spanish coast.

He made landfall at 3.30pm just north of Guardamar del Segura but this isn't the end of this incredible journey. On the 18 June he had headed north and was just west of Madrid at a stopover site that several of our tagged Cuckoos have used in the past. It seems that this was where he intended to fly to when he left the French coast, but had possibly drifted off course. As soon as he could he corrected this and eventually made it there three days later, presumably much lighter than when he set off.

On 10 July Peckham arrived in the Po valley in northern Italy. This is the same area in which he carried out his stopover last year, arriving here in 2015 on 4 July. In 2015 he remained in the area until 29 July.

Locations received from Markoo's tag around lunchtime on 9 July showed that he was in southern Picardy, in an area of woodland on the outskirts of Braine, northern France. He didn't remain here long, by teatime on 11 July he was in an area of woodland to the west of Lyons in southern France.

Larry has left the heatwave in Croatia and has the crossed the Adriatic to southern Italy. The temprature here is a somewhat cooler - 30 degrees centigrade. Larry took the same route last year. From here we expect him to cross the Mediterranean to Libya and head across the desert towards Lake Chad.

At 5am on 10 July Jack was in northern France, close to Paris. He is currently in the Parc Naturel regional Oise-Pays de France, just north of the city.

Disco Tony has headed south and is currently northeast of Montpellier on the French Mediterranean coast. Looking at his previous southerly migration we expect him to head east into northern Italy any day now.

During the early hours of 10 July we received a location from Cuckoo 161324's tag that showed he had left France, flown over the Pyrenees and carried south to central Spain. He is currently around 130km (80 miles) west of Castellon de la Plana.

At 2am on the 9 July, a location received from Cuckoo 161321 showed that he had left Spain and was in southern Morocco, subsequent locations showed that he was actively migrating at the time. By 3.30am he had crossed the border into Algeria, the next locations received at 4.30pm on the same day showed him around half-way through his crossing of the Sahara; he was in the El Djouf Desert in central Mauritania. Remarkably, by 10.30am the next morning he was on the southern edge of the desert in Mali, and close to a tributary of the Niger river. He continued to follow the river south and east and by 4.00pm on 11 July was just west of Bamako, the capital of Mali.This beats our earliest crossing of the desert by a satellite tagged Cuckoo by 6 days. Between 2am on 9 July and 10.30am on 10 July he flew 1,774km (1,102 miles) at an average speed of around 50kph, and all into a light south-westerly headwind.

A series of locations received from PJ on 2 July showed that he had left Suffolk, crossed the North Sea and was on Belgian/French border, close to Bogny-sur-Meuse in France. Two days later he had moved 119km (74 miles) further south. He is currently in an area of forest south of Verdun.

A location received from Peckham on 27 June showed that he had left the UK and was in the Netherlands, close to the border with Germany. He has since crossed the border and is currently on the banks of the Rhine, just north of Vynen.