Updates from our Cuckoos

True to last year's timings, Carlton II has moved onwards dring the first week of November. This year he has flown slightly further south, bypassing Cameroon, and settling on nearby Equatorial Guinea to feed up before he, presumably, presses on into Gabon andthe dense forest of the Congo Basin as last year. His most recent trip covered over 1035km (645 miles) and has taken him close to the town of Anisoc.

Senan had been in Burkina Faso since 21 August but signals on the 5 November show he was ready for change of scenery. He left the location he has spent the last 13 weeks in and travelled 350km (220 miles) south-east to Benin. He is currently on the southern edge of the Wari Maro Forest Reserve. 

After a week in Cameroon, PJ has flown 687 km (427 miles) south to his current location in western Republic of the Congo. He is on the southern edge of the 13,500 Km2 Odzala National Park, one of Africa's oldest national parks, in the heart of the Congo Basin. We don't expect PJ to stay here for more than a week or two before progressing on to his wintering grounds in northern Angola. 

Over the last few days PJ has left Nigeria and flown 1,288 km (800 miles) south east into Cameroon. He stopped briefly en-route just south of the Nigerian capital Abuja, before pressing on across the border into Cameroon. He is now in the Adamawa region of Cameroon and just north of the large Mbam Djerem National Park. He stopped in exactly the same area between 3 October and 20 November 2018 and visited close by on his spring migration earlier this year. We expect him to visit Congo next on his way to Angola where he usually over winters. 

Tennyson has quietly continued onwards, flying over the border into the Republic of Congo. He is currently in the Nouabale Ndoki National Park, an area of over 4,000 square kilometers of lowland rainforest. He has chosen a good spot as this is an intact forest ecosystem where wildlife who reside here have had little or no contact with people. 

Carlton II has started the next stage of his migration, leaving his last location in Mali and flying 1,434 km (891 miles) East to Nigeria, via a brief stop-off in Benin. Carlton II is now in the Dagida Game Reserve in western Nigeria. In 2018, Carlton II spent two and a half weeks in this game reserve from mid October to early November before pressing on through Cameroon to Gabon, where he spent the winter.

PJ has been in northern Nigeria since early August and, looking back at previous years data, could be on the move shortly to Cameroon. In the last couple of years he has arrived there in the first week of October,  later making his way south to winter in Angola. Keep watching this space!  

Over the last few days Norfolk Cuckoo Tenysson has flown 644 km (400 miles) south from Nigeria into Cameroon. He is the first of our tagged Cuckoos to make this next leg of the journey and he is now in far eastern Cameroon, close to the border with Central African Republic. It is the rainy season in this area now and the weather today will be between 68 and 83 F (20 to 28 C) with 76% humidity and thunderstorms bringing a 40% chance of rain. This is probably another stop-over point for Tennyson and we expect him to move further south over the coming days or weeks.

Over the weekend Carlton II left Senegal and has flown 534 km (332 miles) east into Mali. He is now in the south eastern part of the Kayes region of Mali, approximately 145 km (90 miles) north west of the capital, Bamako. Cuckoos Valentine and Senan are over the border in Burkina Faso while PJ and Tennyson are more than 1,500 km further east in Nigeria. 

The last few weeks have been quiet and for those who had not yet completed their desert crossings, it looks like the challenging conditions have claimed more of our tagged Cuckoos.

Unfortunately no further signals have been received from Knepp. From the temperature data and movements at the time, he was alive on 12 July, when we last heard from his tag. Though the battery charge had been low for a few days, there is no evidence of long term battery decline so we can't be sure what has happened to him - either he, or the tag, appear to have died suddenly. 

Lambert, who was still in France, has not moved on south and signals on 21 August showed high temperature fluctuations across the day, indicating the bird's body temperature and behaviour were not regulating it. We've heard nothing since then, and his tags battery charge had suddenly dipped, all of which leads us to believe he has likely died.

Unfortunately the challenging conditions have also impacted on Nussey who has already attempted two trips to Africa and retreated to Europe.  Abnormally low temperatures were received at the time of the last messages (16 August), having previously been fine. He was not migrating at that time, so the low temperatures were not due to high altitude, and the battery was also much lower than previously, further suggesting he was dead.

The droughts and exceptionally high temperatures in Europe appear to have proved difficult for our Cuckoos this year, however the five south of the Sahara are still regularly transmitting. Valentine, PJ, Carlton II and Tennysons' tags have all sent signals during September and the last signals received from Senan's tag were at the end of August and show him still in Burkina Faso.