At 10:54 on Wednesday 24 July PJ was still in northern Spain but by 11:18 on Sunday 29 July he had flown 1,748 km (1,086 miles) south east and was in or over the desert in central Algeria. He has since flown a further 626 km (389 miles) south and by 04:30 this morning (29 July) he was at the western edge of the Tassili Oua-N-Ahaggar Desert in the Tamanrasset region of southern Algeria. He needs to travel another 1000 km (621 miles) or so in order to complete his desert crossing, hopefully when we next hear from him he'll be safely on the other side. In previous years PJ has stopped in Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger after crossing the Sahara.
Updates from our Cuckoos
Read the latest updates from our Cuckoos on their epic migration between the UK and tropical Africa, or track their movements in real-time on our Cuckoo migration map.
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PJ is crossing the desert!
29 Jul 2019
Tennyson crosses into Cameroon
26 Jul 2019
Tennyson clocked in at 03:06 this morning (Friday July 26) with an update showing he has flown 270 km (168 miles) south east from his last location in Nigeria over the border into Cameroon. He is now in the North Province of Cameroon, and is just north of Faro National Park.
Thomas on his way to Africa?
25 Jul 2019
We were getting a bit worried about Thomas after a period of almost two weeks without an update from his tag. When we last heard from him he was near Ales in souther France. Finally on Monday 22 July we received a couple of poor quality locations showing that he had flown 840 km (521 miles) south west and was just south of Daimiel in Ciudad Real, Castile-La Mancha, Spain. He didn't hang around though and by 19:24 on the evening of July 24 he had flown another 297 km (185 miles) south west and was on the Costa del Sol, between Marbella and Fuengirola, approximately 4.5 km (2.8 miles) inland. It looks like he may have just been passing through as the last signal we received last night at 20:30 showed him to be 12 km (7.8 miles) due south of Marbella, out over the Mediterranean. This was a poor quality signal so we'll have to await the next update to find out if Thomas has made his move to Africa.
Tennyson is the first to cross the desert!
22 Jul 2019
In our last update we reported that Thetford Cuckoo Tennyson had made it as far as Northern Niger, having flown 2,496 km (1,550 miles) from his previous stop-over site in northern Spain. A transmission received from Tennyson's tag at 07:44 on Friday July 19 confirmed that he had become the first of our tagged Cuckoo to successfully cross the Sahara in 2019. He passed east of the Air Mountains in Niger and landed in northern Nigeria. After stopping first close to Kano, the state capital of Kano State in northern Nigeria, he has since flown 256 km (159 miles) south east and is in north-eastern Nigeria, on the border between the states of Bauchi and Taraba. 1,432 km (890 miles) now separates Tennyson from Valentine, the other Cuckoo that has crossed the desert. Both of these Cuckoos were tagged in Thetford Forest this year.
Valentine has crossed the desert
22 Jul 2019
Since our last update Valentine has become the second of our tagged Cuckoos to successfully cross the Sahara. From his location in Morocco he has flown south east into Algeria and then due south over Mali to Burkina Faso. He is currently in the Rollo Department, a commune of Bam Province in north-western Burkina Faso. He is 125 km (78 miles) north of the capital Ouagadougou.
Nussey near Escource
18 Jul 2019
Since our last update Nussey has flown a further 20 km (13 miles) north and is now close to the town of Escource in Nouvelle-Aquitaine in southwestern France. Having already been to Africa, he has regressed to being our most northerly Cuckoo!
Knepp crosses into Spain
18 Jul 2019
Knepp is now 595 km (370 miles) south west of his last location in south west France and is just 1.5 km (1 mile) south of the shore of the Valparaíso Reservoir in the province of Zamora, Castile and León, Spain. He is very close to the village of Villardeciervos. Knepp also stopped in this area last year but was 26 km (16 miles) south west of here, nearer the town of Trabazos, where he stayed until July 28 before crossing into Morocco.
Valentine arrives in Morocco
18 Jul 2019
An update from Valentine at 19:40 last night (Wednesday July 17) showed that he had completed his crossing of the Mediterranean and was in the High Atlas mountains in central Morocco. By 22:57 last night he had flown 737 km (458 miles) from his last stop over site in southern Spain and was near Iriqui National Park, in the Atlas mountains close to the border with Algeria. Interestingly he was just 4.8 km (3 miles) from the spot where Nottingham Cuckoo Bill perished in April 2017 (Bill's tag is still transmitting). It'll be interesting to see whether Valentine pushes on across the desert from here.
Tennyson is crossing the desert!
18 Jul 2019
During the evening of Sunday July 14 Tennyson was near Perpignan in southern France and by 19:00 that evening he had crossed into northern Spain, and was 85 km (53 miles) north west of Barcelona. The next time we heard from Tennyson was at 08:00 on Wednesday July 17, when he was crossing the Sahara, having covered 1,920 km (1,193 miles) from Spain to the Tassili-N-Ajjer Desert portion of the Sahara in south-central Algeria. The last signal received from Tennyson's tag arrived at 20:17 last night (July 17) showing that he had made it as far as Northern Niger, having flown 2,496 km (1,550 miles) in just over 72 hours, at an average speed of 34.6 kpH (21.5 mph). When we next hear from Tennyson we will hopefully see that he has become the first of our tagged Cuckoos to successfully conquer the Sahara in 2019!
Lambert arrives in the south of France
16 Jul 2019
An update from Lambert's tag late in the afternoon of July 13 showed that he had flown 420 km (262 miles) south east and was close to Notre-Dame-de-la-Rouviere in southern France. He has since settled a couple of miles east of that location, near the small village of Valniere in the Cevennes National Park. He is 53 Km (33 miles) north of Montpelier and is in the same location that he stopped in last year. Last year he left this location on July 25 so we don't expect him to hang around for long.
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