Updates from our Cuckoos

After a number of poor quality signals from Fred's tag indicating he was in  Nigeria we're pleased to see that a good quality location has recently been received placing him in westen Nigeria, just south of the River Moshi Forestry Reserve. 

During the early hours of 13 April we received a location from Derek that showed him in Morocco, on the northern edge of the Sahara, the third of our tagged Cuckoos to successfully make it across.

During the early hours of the 13 April, Stanley transmitted from the Sierra Nevada Mountains in southern Spain. He is the second bird to reach Europe - how long will he stay before heding further north?

Dudley transmitted from south-west France, close to the Pyrenees, on 11 April. He is well ahead of the other tagged birds but could now spend time recovering from his 500km flight from central Spain. Will he be the fisrt back to the UK?

It looks like Dudley's move to southern Mali on the morning of 6 April was indeed the start of his migration! Between then and around 10am on 8 April he flew 2360km (1470 miles) crossing Mali and Algeria to reach northern Morocco. He didn't stop there though and crossed over into southern Spain by late afternoon of the same day becoming the first of this year's tagged Cuckoos to return to Europe. Further low quality signals indicate he has continued north 330km (205 miles) and was south of Madrid just after midnight this morning. 

Dudley has moved north-west from his location in Ghana, travelling 550km (340 miles) and is now in Mali. Could this be the start of his migration? 

Chris is on the move! A good quality signal on 31 March placed Chris just inside the border of Ghana, showing that Chris had made his move west, albeit later than in previous years. Since the last transmission received on 21 March he has covered 1700km (1060 miles).  We are glad to see he is once again on his way. This will be the fourth return journey over which we will have followed him - we wish him a safe return! 

On the evening of 26 March a transmission received from David showed that he was on the move again and had travelled 650km (400 miles) further west. He is now in Sierra Leone, close to the border with Guinea. 

In both previous years he has also set off on his desert crossing from Sierra Leone but in both cases he arrived there in the first week of April. In 2013 he started his desert crossing on 15 April and headed to Mauritania while in 2014 he left on the 17 April but went slightly further west still, to Senegal, and then on to Morocco. 

Given his earlier movement this year, could he be the first Cuckoo to turn north and head home?

Since receiving one transmission from Fred's tag on 5 March, nothing further has been received which details his location and he has once again dropped off the map, which shows only active Cuckoos within the last 10 days by default. We presume that, if all is ok, Fred would by now have moved to West Africa. We will have to wait to see where he is when further transmissions are received.  

On 5 March we received one good signal from Fred's tag which showed that he had moved to the northern forest edge, where many of our tagged Cuckoos have moved to before heading to West Africa.