Updates from our Cuckoos

Sylvester has reached the Sahel and the southern edge of the desert. He is currently in the Gao region of eastern Mali and just to the north of the D'ansongo-Menaka Reserve. It is the rainy season and rain is forecast for the next few days, this should provide Sylvester with plenty of food.

Having spent seven days just to the north of Lake Chad, Robinson is now to the south of it. He has moved south and west and into Nigeria. It is currently raining where he is.

PJ's tag has come on early, probably due to it getting lots of sun during the desert crossing. A series of locations received from his tag during the evening of 1 August show that he continued his flight across the desert and made it to the Sahel. He is currently in Mali on the banks of the Niger River. It looks like the easterly winds did drift him a little west.

When we last heard from Sylvester's tag at just after 5pm on 31 July he was undertaking his desert crossing and was pretty much in the middle of Algeria and about a third of the way across the desert. His tag should power-up again during the evening of 2 August and show whether he has made it across.

Around mid-afternoon on 31 August PJ's tag showed that he was crossing the desert and was about a third of the way across. We will have to wait until 3 August to see if he makes it. The winds in this part of the desert are currently from the southeast but much lighter than they have been. If he maintains his course he will arrive on the southern edge of the desert in Niger or Nigeria. The winds in the southern part of the desert are quite strong from the east right now and it might be that he gets drifted a little way to the west during the latter part of the crossing.

Lambert's tag shows he has made it across the desert and is in Senegal. His crossing coincided with strong easterly winds and it looks like these pushed him quite a way west. He is currently 50km (30 miles) from the Senegal coast and just to the north of the Saloum River. He is the furthest west we have seen any of our Cuckoos. 

Cameron has moved another 550km (340 miles) into Nigeria. He is currently to the north of the Lame Burra Game Reserve in northern central Nigeria.

Around 5pm on 28 July Larry's tag showed that he had successfully crossed the desert. He is currently around 200km (125 miles) north of the stopover site he used in southern Chad in 2015, 2016 and 2017.

Around 5.30am on 30 July, we received the first of four locations from Lambert's tag that showed he was actively crossing the Sahara. The last location received at just after 7am showed he was in northwestern Mauritania and about a third of the way across the desert; this should show on his map when it updates tomorrow. We will have to wait until breakfast on 1 August to see if he has made it across. There are fairly stiff north-easterly winds in this part of the desert and Lambert does seem to be drifting west towards Western Sahara. It will be interesting to see just how far west he is on completing the crossing.

Having spent 19 days in Spain, close to the Portuguese border, Knepp has now headed south. On the evening of 28 July his tag showed that he had crossed the Straits of Gibraltar and was in Morocco. He is currently in the Rif Mountains to the east of Chefchaouen.