Updates from our Cuckoos

Having spent the last couple of months in southern Niger, Victor II has recently flown 1,041km (647 miles) south east to south eastern Nigeria. He is now approximately 36km north west of the city of Calabar in Cross River State. Last year he stopped for a couple of weeks around this time just over the border in Cameroon before pressing on to the Congo via Equatorial Guinea. He had arrived at his wintering grounds by the end of October so we expect him to move on from Nigeria soon.  

It has been almost three months now since we last heard from Bluey and sadly we must conclude that he has perished. Having made it across the Sahara and reached south west Mali, the updates stopped despite the diagnostic data from his tag not suggesting any malfunctions. Having taken the westerly route across the Sahara which we know is associated with a higher mortality rate for our tagged Cuckoos it is sad but not so surprising to report this ending. Bluey has added valuable data to our growing knowledge of Cuckoo migration. 

Over the last few days JAC has flown 592km (368 miles) south east from his last location in Gabon to the Republic of the Congo. He is in the rainforest approximately 20km north west of the town of Makoua. Last year JAC spent a couple of weeks in the Republic of Congo at the beginning of October before moving deeper into the rainforest of the Congo Basin of DRC to the east where he remained until late February.  

New updates received this morning show that Grove II has flown 557km (346 miles) south from his last location in Cameroon to Gabon. He is now close to Ivindo National Park in Central Gabon, a 300,000 hectare UNESCO World Heritage Site which is home to Western Lowland Gorilla, Chimpanzee, forest Elephants, and African Golden Cat. On the western edge of the Congo Basin, more than 430 bird species have been recorded at this site.  

Since our last update, Ellis has flown 780km (486 miles) south east from Central African Republic over the border into the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). He is now in the heart of the Congo Basin in north west DRC where he may well stay for the next few months.

Grove II has flown 570km (354 miles) south east from Nigeria into Cameroon. He is now in the Littoral region of western Cameroon, approximately 95km (59 miles) north east of the capital Yaoundé. 

We haven't received any further updates from Cooper since 7th September when he was still in eastern Nigeria. Hopefully we will hear from Cooper again soon.

Over the last couple of days Grove II has flown 367km (228 miles) south east within Nigeria to his new location in Nasarawa state in north central Nigeria. He is now some 100km (62 miles) south east of the Nigerian capital Abuja. 

We continue to receive updates from Daniel's tag but unfortunately the updates show him stranded in the desert in Chad, some 330km north of Lake Chad. It is very unlikely that Daniel could survive for such a long time here so we have to conclude that he has sadly perished. Since being tagged in June 2021, Daniel has provided us with valuable data, including a full loop migration from his breeding grounds in Wales to his wintering grounds in Cameroon and back again.