Updates from our Cuckoos

We were delighted to receive further updates from Daniel's tag last night showing that he has flown 924 km (574 miles) north-north west from his last location on Sicily. At around 10pm last night he was close to the fishing village of Camogli on the Portofino peninsula approximately 10 miles east of Genoa. He is now slightly further north than Worcestershire Cuckoo Calypso. Might he beat Calypso, Victor II and JAC back to the UK? 

Calypso didn't stop for long on the Costa del Sol, he has flown 295 km (184 miles) north and has reached Extramadura. He is now close to the Orellan Reservoir and the internationally important Sierra de Pela wetlands. He is now ahead of JAC and Daniel and just behind Victor II. 

Calypso has arrived in Europe having crossed the Straits of Gibraltar over the weekend. He is now close to San Pedro de Alcantara, approximately 10 km west of Marbella on the Coast del Sol.

New updates received early yesterday morning (24 April) showed that PJ had flown the final 1,000 km from northern Spain and was back in the UK. Further updates received since tell us that he is safely back on his breeding grounds in the King's Forest in Suffolk having completed his sixth tracked migration between the UK and Africa. Each complete migration from Suffolk to his wintering grounds in the Congo Basin and back again is approximately 16,000 km (9,940 miles) so we have now tracked him over at least 96,000 km (59,640 miles). He was a second year bird when we tagged him so he had already completed a full migration cycle before we tagged him in 2016. This means that over the course of his life so far he has flown 112,000 km (69,580 miles) on migration alone. It is a wonder he has any energy left to chase around his breeding grounds defending his territory and searching for mates! The oldest ringed UK Cuckoo was caught alive at Wicken Fen in Cambridgeshire in 1983 - 6 years, 11 months and 2 days after he was ringed as an adult, making him at least 7 years, 11 months and 2 days old. PJ will have to survive another year to vie for the crown of the UK's oldest known Cuckoo but his achievements so far have already exceeded our wildest expectations - what a bird!

As we had not heard from Cuckoo Daniel since mid March when he was in Cameroon, and our other Cuckoos were making good progress towards the UK we were expecting to have to announce that we had lost him. However, we received some signals from Daniel's tag at 04:46 this morning showing that he is in Sicily, 3,780 km (2,347 miles) from his last know location! He is in the south eastern corner of the island, 18km east of the city of Gela. Hopefully this marks the return of regular updates from Daniel's tag.

Llangollen Cuckoo JAC has flown a further 84 Km (53 miles) north and is now in the Sierras de Cazorla, Segura y Las Villas Natural Park in the province of Jaen in Spain. This is the largest protected area in Spain and is also a Special Protection Area for migratory birds.

Calypso has continued his progress north and new updates received early this morning (18 April) show that he has reached northern Morocco. He is now in the the Fès-Meknès region of Morocco, approximately 195 Km south of the Mediterranean coast. 

Over the last 472 Km (294 miles) north to northern Spain. He is now more or less neck and neck with Victor II who is approximately 200 Km (125 miles) east of him. PJ is now in the Sierra del Perdon mountain range approximately 10 Km south of Pamplona. 

Calypso is in the Saoura Valley which seperates the sand dunes of the Grand Erg Occidental area of the Sahara to the east from the rocky hills of the Ougarta Range to the west. With his crossing of the Sahara almost complete, we will hopefully see that he has safely reached northern Morocco or Algeria soon.

Victor II has made good progress on his journey north, leapfrogging both PJ and JAC on his way. By yesterday evening (15 April) he was close to the city of Lleida in the west of Catalonia, Spain. He may be taking a break here as just ahead of him are the Pyrenees.