Updates from our Cuckoos

Chris has returned to the area around the Norfolk/Suffolk border where he was first tagged in spring 2011 and has spent each subsequent summer. 

Since leaving our shores in 2011, Chris has flown over, or visited, twenty-eight different countries, crossed the Sahara Desert eight times and reached speeds of up to 60mph. 

Dr Chris Hewson, lead scientist on the project at the BTO, said, “Chris was one-year old when we fitted the satellite-tag, which makes him five-years old now, and quite an age for a Cuckoo; the oldest we have on record is almost seven. The tag was also given a life of two-to-three years, so that is getting quite old too. We had everything crossed for Chris to make it back again this year and give us another complete migration route, and he hasn’t let us down.”

David is back at his breeding site near Tregaron in Wales, completing his third complete migration with his satellite tag since 2012. He arived on 28 April, at least two weeks earlier than in 2014 and a week earlier than in 2013. 

David has moved a little closer to the UK and is now in northern France, poised to make his return! 

Chris is back in the UK once again! From western Spain he has covered 1080km (670 miles), travelling over France and the English Channel to reach a location in the Isle of Wight by the 26 April.  He still has a little way further to go yet to reach his breeding grounds which are to the north-east, in Norfolk. This is the fourth return trip of his that we have been able to follow since he was tagged in 2011.  

By the morning of the 26 April Derek had returned to Norfolk and was back in the UK. From his postition in Spain he had travelled 1620km (1000 miles), crossing over France during the 24 April, to return his breeding grounds as the fifth of our tagged Cuckoos back to the UK. 

Ash has returned to the UK over the weekend, ariving back in Sussex on 25 April, having left Lower Normandy and travelled 200km (125 miles). He is the fourth tagged Cuckoo to return. 

Since the morning of the 20 April Ash has continued moving north from Algeria. By the end of the day he was in southern Spain and by the morning of 22 April he had made it as far as the western coast of France, near Nantes. By the 23 he was in Lower Normandy. 

From Nigeria on 12 April, Chester has travelled north-west around 3100km (1940 miles), crossing the Sahara desert, and making it to a location close to the Algeria/Morocco border in north Africa by 22 April.   

Chris continued on his desert crossing from Mali, travelling a further 2500km (1550 miles) to reach northern Spain. He is now west of Zamora, a city in Castile and León region and is furher north than Derek, Dudley, David or Stanley.