Updates from our Cuckoos

Stanley has travelled south from Niger and is now in Nigeria. He joins Sherwood bird Dudley, in the east of Nigeria, and Devon bird Emsworthy, who is about as far east in Nigeria as you can go, close to Nigeria's border with Cameroon. 

By 11 August Skinner had journeyed a futher 315km (195 miles) from the location he first grounded in within Mali. Yesterday he had made even more progress and was in Niger. He still has a little way to go to make it to the forest edge further south but hopefully this progress is a good sign. 

On 10 August 134957 was north-west of Toulouse in southern France. Signals received on 14 August indicated that he had travelled 800km (500 miles) south from there and crossed the Balearic Sea to reach the Algerian coast.  He continued to travel south through Algeria and by 17 August was in Mali, close to the area where Skinner paused his journey for a short time. We will have to wait for further signals to see whether 134957 waits here or pushes on to complete his desert crossing. 

Chester has made his move from Spain and travelled south over the sea to reach Africa.  He has made his way through western Algeria and further poor quality signals indicate he has continued on into Mauritania.  

Derek may have been the last of our tagged Cuckoos to leave the UK, but he is far from being the last Cuckoo to arrive in Africa.

From Spain he headed across the Mediterannean Sea to reach Algeria by 7 August and continued onwards further south to finish his desert crossing by the 11 August in Burkina Faso. He has covered over 3200km (2000 miles) in 10 days and taken just 3 weeks since leaving the UK to make it to a location south of the Sahara! His longest stopover was in Spain. This is probably one of the fastest journeys we have seen any of our tagged Cuckoos make since the project began.

From Montenegro it appears that David then travelled down to Greece and made his crossing to Libya, Africa from here. Poor quality signals on the 4 August show him travelling through the Libyan desert and by the early hours of 9 August he had completed his crossing and made it safely to southern Chad. 

By the 2 August, Waller had moved south into Tuscany and it was from here that he decided to cross to Africa, transmitting from Libya around midday on 6 August! He is the second Scottish Cuckoo to make it to Africa this summer. The last signal received showed he had made some progress south within Libya but still had a way to go to complete his crossing of the desert. 

In previous years, we've seen Chris be one of the first tagged Cuckoos in Africa but this year he seems to be on a much more relaxed schedule. His previous arrival dates in Africa were 23 July, 16 July and 24 July but right now he is still currently in Italy! It will be interesting to see whether this affects the rest of his journey or whether he just does the same route in a more leisurely fashion.  

Livingstone arrived in Africa on time this year, in fact a few days earlier than last year when he arrived on 31 July. This time he transmitted from Libya on 27 July before heading south through Niger and then heading east into Chad, in a very similar fashion to last year. 

The first indication Ash was on his way was late on 31 July when a location was received just off the coast of Croatia in the Adriatic sea. A few days later, on the 2 August, he was in Libya. From here he went south to Chad and signals received today show him close to the locations of Livingstone, Hennah and Peter.