Updates from our Cuckoos

Calypso is making his move and has flown 2,124 Km (1,319 miles) north from his stop-over site in Ivory Coast. By 23:18 last night (13 April) he was 75 Km south of the desert town of Reggane, central Algeria. He is crossing the Tanezrouft, a vast barren plain which is one of the driest and most desolate parts of the Sahara. As he progresses north Calypso may take advantage of a series of oases between Reggane and the town of Adrar, 150 Km to the north.

Victor II has started his desert crossing. Updates received from his tag between 04:47 and 06:48 this morning (13 April) showed that he had flown 1,121 Km (697 miles) north from his last location in Ivory Coast. He had flown over the south western corner of Mali and was in or over south eastern Mauritania. He was 65 Km due east of the town of Nema. There isn't much here for a Cuckoo so hopefully when we receive the next updates we will see that Victor II has completed his desert crossing and has arrived in northern Morocco or Algeria. 

JAC didn't hang around for long in Morocco, by yesterday afternoon he was on the move again, crossing the Mediterranean. At 19:00 last night he was close to Berja in Andalusia, southern Spain. He pressed on and by 21:55 last night he was in the Sierra de Baza mountains approximately 20 Km south west of the city of Baza in Granada. 

New updates show that PJ has flown 57 km (35 miles) west and is now in the Sierra de Alacaraz mountain range in Albacete Province, southeast Spain.

After completing his crossing of the Sahara, JAC has spent the last 24 hours in northern Morocco. He is now approximately 15 km east of the city of Nador, hopefully enjoying some good feeding on the farmland close to the shores of the Mar Chica lagoon. 

Ellis is still moving north and by 18:00 this evening (11 April) he had flown 285 km (177 miles) north from his last location west of Bordeaux. He is now just north of the Loire, close to the village of Allonnes in western France. He is now only a few hundred km from being back in the UK, will he keep going or is he going to slow down and give PJ a chance to overtake him? 

Ellis is the first of our tagged Cuckoos to make it to France this year. New updates received from his tag yesterday morning (9 April) show that he has flown 205 km (128 miles) north east from his last location near Lekeitio in the Basque Country to his new location on the coast to the west of Bordeaux. He is now on some farmland close to the village of Le Porge in Nouvelle-Aquitaine in south-western France.

Over the last few days Llangollen Cuckoo JAC has made his move north across the mighty Sahara. Since our last update he has flown 2,670 km (1,659 miles) north from Ivory Coast to his latest position in north western Algeria. At 21:00 last night he was still over the desert approaching the border between Algeria and Morocco. Light southerly winds in this area will hopefully help JAC safely on his way to northern Morocco or Algeria or even southern Europe where he can stop for a well-deserved rest. 

New updates received from Ellis' tag between 4 am and 9 am this morning show that he has flown 787 km (489 miles) north, taking him the whole length of Spain. This morning's updates showed him near the towns of Lekeitio and Ondarroa in the Basque Country. 

PJ has continued his progress north after crossing the Sahara and over the last 48 hours he has crossed the Mediterranean and arrived in Spain. By the early hours of yesterday morning he had made it to the Murcia province of southern Spain where he was just within the Paraje El Nevazo de Abajo ecological park. He is 113km (70 miles) due west of Alicante so he is still a couple of hundred kilometres further east than his usual route, but as we now know, this is no big deal for these birds! He is approximately 175km further north than Cuckoo Ellis but will he maintain this lead or will Ellis leap frog him? It usually takes PJ no more than about 10 days to get from Spain back to the UK so we are keeping everything crossed that we'll soon be sending you the exciting news that he has made it "home".