Updates from our Cuckoos

The last signal David's tag sent from Wales was on the 28 June and by the evening of 30 June he was in the Champagne-Ardenne region of France. This is spot on with the timing of last year when he transmitted outside of the UK on 30 June but from Central, rather than northern, France. Interestingly, in the first year we tagged David he left much earlier and headed to Germany. Despite this, both years so far he has then headed across to Montenegro to make his crossing to Africa. 

Dudley is the chosen name given to Cuckoo 134952 by Joanna Harris who won the prize draw. Joanna was randomly selected from all the project supporters and cuckoo sponsors who have helped to fund the project so far this spring. 

Over the weekend Skinner left the UK and yesterday turned up in France, just inside the French border with Belgium. Last year was the first year we started tracking Skinner and he headed much further north-east when he left the UK, first transmitting from a location just within the Netherlands, before then heading down through France.  

Waller and Chester have remained in the same areas of France in which they first transmitted, close to Reims and Le Mans respectively, as has 134955 who is a little further south. Ash, meanwhile seems to be heading south despite being the latest of the four to arrive.  

With three un-named birds left we are letting you choose what to name one of our Sherwood Cuckoos!  Anyone who sponsors a Cuckoo before the end of June will be entered in to a draw. We’ll then pick one entry at random and will contact the winner who can then suggest a suitable name*. Find out how you could name a Cuckoo. 

Gilbert, Meavy and un-named Cuckoo 134952 are all in Spain while Hennah is just over the border in the south of France. It looks like it won't be long until he joins them. 

Emsworthy has travelled over the border from France to join Whortle, Livingstone and Peter in Italy. Livingstone and Peter are in the Po Valley, an area that the project has shown to be important to many of our Cuckoos,  while Whortle and Emsworthy are currently close to the valley edge. 

Emsworthy's move this year, from France along and into Italy, looks remarkably similiar to Whortle's movement last year, just before he suprised us by retreating back to France and then down through Spain to Africa.  This year Whortle has headed straight to Italy and not stopped in France as far as we can tell. Will he head through Spain as last year or make the flight to Africa directly from Italy? Which route will fellow Devon Cuckoo Emsworthy take? 

Stanley is now on the move and, while the maps show him over the English Channel, we've received further (low quality) locations which place him south-west of Paris, France. Meanwhile BB is a little further behind but has left Scotland and, as of early this morning, was north-west of Newcastle.