Updates from our Cuckoos

Robinson's tag shows that he is across the desert and is northeast of Lake Chad. His tag powered-up 24 hours earlier than we were expecting, presumably the result of the solar panel on the tag getting plenty of sunshine during the crossing.

He began his desert flight from the Libyan coast around 8.00am on 25 July, by 9.00pm on the same day he was halfway across. His tag powered-up again just before 10.00am on 26 July, showing he was 805km (500 miles) further south and west and heading towards Lake Chad. The last location from his tag was just before 5.00pm on the same day; he was just 69km (43 miles) from the lake.

We were getting quite concerned about Larry. Having not heard from his tag for 11 days we were beginning to fear the worst but did also consider that the battery that powers his tag might not be getting a very good charge. The island of Cres, his stopover site in Croatia, is very wooded and he was almost certainly spending time under the canopy feeding. However, we now know that Larry is alive and well and crossing the Sahara.

Larry is on his fourth migration since he was fitted with his tag in 2015. he seems to time his desert crossing for the last week in July, and is normally on the southern edge of the desert in the first few days of August. This year he seems to be timing things perfectly again. His tag stopped transmitting around breakfast on 26 July, it will be powered down for 48 hours to allow the solar panel to charge the onboard battery and then power up again around breakfast on 28 July. It will be interesting to see where he is when this happens.

Locations received from Robinson's tag during the late evening of 25 July showed that he was in the middle of his desert crossing. We will now have to wait until late on 27 July to see if he has been successful. The winds over the desert currently look favourable for helping him on his way.

We were getting quite concerned about Lambert. He didn't move about very much at his stopover site in southern France and we have lost Cuckoos in this area before. However, late on the evening of 25 July Lambert popped up in northeast Morocco, on the edge of the Tazekka National Park, an area of wooded mountains in the Middle Atlas. This was a surprise to us as we thought that Lambert would take the eastern route through Italy, not the western route.

Having left northern France and crossed the Pyrenees into Spain only three days ago, Sherwood has kept going. His map currently shows him crossing the Straits of Gibraltar but we have received a few more recent locations that show he is now in Morocco, to the south of Tangier.

Thomas is on the southern edge of the Sahara but he didn't get there via a long flight out into the Atlantic, as his map suggests. The satellite passing over the Cuckoo tags will sometimes receive a series of poor locations, and the coding behind the automatic map updates is such that it usually ignores these, sometimes we do get one of these slip through and this is the case with Thomas in the Atlantic. His journey across the desert will have seen him moving along the western edge of the desert before heading southeast into Senegal.

Having spent the last three weeks in northern France Sherwood is finally on his way south. On 21 July we recieved a series of locations from his tag that showed he had crossed the Pyrenees and was in Spain. He is just to the west of Olmedillas and around 100km (60 miles) northeast of Madrid.

In 2017 Selborne moved east from his post-desert crossing stopover site on 23 July, this year he made the same move on 22 July. He is now 570km (354 miles) east of his last location and has crossed the border into Burkina Faso.

Selborne left Spain on 11 July this year, heading almost due south into Morocco before drifting east into Algeria and then heading  west and on to southeastern Mali. He his in the same location, north of the capital, Bamoko, that he used as his post-desert stopover site in 2016. He moved west from this location on 23 July in 2016 but had arrived there six days earlier than this year. It will be interesting to see how long he remains here this year.

Locations received from Cameron's tag during the early hours of 17 July showed that he was on the move, heading south and east into Nigeria. By breakfast he had reached the Sokoto River and was just south of the town of Kalgo. This will show on his map when it automatically updates.