Updates from our Cuckoos

During the early morning of 4 May Derek transmitted from Basingstoke, Hampshire. He is back in the UK! By mid-morning he was back in East Anglia and heading for the Norfolk Broads, his tagging site. At 13.30 he had done it, he was back in the Broads - the end of an epic migration from the Congo Rainforest.

By the early hours of 3 May Livingstone had made it to Brittany, France. Approximately 30 hours later and he was flying over Wales, leaving land close to Colwyn Bay and cutting across the Irish Sea and travelling north to the Isle of Lismore. A further 50 miles travelling northwards and he had returned to his tagging grounds, in the smaller lochs south of Locah Carron. 

Both Waller and Livingstone returned to Scotland from western France but took surprisingly different routes to return, with Livingstone sticking to Wales and the west while Waller headed east to Berwickshire and then cut back across to western Scotland. We are delighted to welcome back two more Cuckoos! 

By the very early hours of 4 May Waller was back in Scotland, just inside the border near Duns, Berwickshire. He had cut across the UK from the Channel Islands to the south-west, right across to the eastern Scottish coast and travelled 650km (400 miles). From here he followed the coast to a location near Edinburgh, before heading west to Oban by the afternoon of 5 May.

By 6 May he was in the area of Fort William and flying over the area near Ben Nevis, the highest mountain in the British Isles. He is close to Loch Eli and has yet to return to his tagging grounds, which are about 70km (50 miles) further north. 

By the 27 April, David had travelled to Spain and was just north of the Sierra Nevada Mountains having travelled 460km (285 miles) from his last location in Morocco.

It looks likely that either Ken has perished in Ivory Coast or the tag is no longer attached. The tag temperature is now fluctuating with the day and night time temperatures, rather than remaining consistant with body temperature as it should. It looks like we will not be following Ken across the desert and back to the UK. 

During the late evening of 24 April Whortle began moving north out of Portugal and when he next transmitted on 27 April at 07.00 and was in western France, north of La Rochelle.  By early evening on 29 April, he has travelled a further 330km (205 miles) and was in the north western tip of France on the Channel coast, close to Saint-Pol-de-Leon.  Today (2 May) at 03.26 the satellite picked him up back in the UK and on Dartmoor, 1.5km (1 mile) north east of Buckland in the Moor and 1km (.5 miles) from his 2013 tagging site.

During the evening of 27 April BB left the Cantabrian Mountains of northern Spain.  When he next transmitted on the evening of 29 April he was in northwest France, 48km (28 miles) southeast of St-Malo and 648km (400 miles) north of his last position in Spain. From the information received it looks like he took a direct flight across the Bay of Biscay. His next transmission at 03.26 on 2 May showed that he didn’t hang around in France as he was on the southern shore of Loch Katrine, Stirlingshire, the site at which he was tagged on 17th May 2012. He is now just over 6,000km (4,000 miles) from the Congo Rainforest and the area in which he spent the winter, and that he set out from three-and-a-half months ago.

Signals on 23 April show that Derek was crossing over the Mediterranean Sea. When the next cycle of tranmissions was sent on 26 he was in southern Spain, 230km (145 miles) south of Madrid. He has now moved northwards and is close to the border with France. 

Waller is almost back. Having left his last location in Spain, he flew over the Cantabrian Mountains and across the Bay of Biscay and by 29 April he was in Berson, just north of the port city of Bordeaux on the Garonne River in the Gironde department in southwestern France. The latest signals shows him a further 550km (340 miles) further north and, after a brief rest on the Channel Islands yesterday evening, he continued on his way again and the last transmission was over  the sea.  The next signals should reveal that he has made it to land and will be on, or closer to, his tagging ground on the Isle of Skye. 

By the 26 April Livingstone had left Algeria and made it to Spain and was in the region of Zaragoza. From here, he then travelled 200km (130 miles) north-west and was south of Soria by 30 April.