Updates from our Cuckoos

Kasper has remained in the same area until at least 30th June. His tag does not appear to be charging particularly well so we are only getting intermittent, low accuracy fixes. The single fix we received was of such low accuracy we are not sure if he has moved or not!

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Martin has left Breydon Water. At 0921hrs this morning (30 June) he popped up in the Auvergne region of central France – having travelled 715km on a heading near to due south since Tuesday. He is now in a landscape of arable and grazing fields with scattered woodlots (see below for photo from streetview) about 100km south-west of where Clement staged in Burgundy.

On Tuesday afternoon, Lyster was spending time on the Loddon side of the Yare valley – several accurate locations in the evening place him adjacent to Hardley floods.

A low accuracy location received this morning (30 June) suggest that Kasper has remained in the same area 50km (30 miles) west of Bologna.

On Tuesday (28 June) morning Clement was still in the same area just east of Collobrieres.

We have received no new locations for Chris – however, the data received in a brief transmission at the beginning of his tag’s ‘on’ period yesterday (29 June) morning showed that the tag is not charging well. There are a number of possible reasons for this – the tag could be failing, it could be failing to charge because of the environment Chris is in, or Chris may be dead, perhaps taken by a falcon or Sparrowhawk, and the tag lying on the ground. Our colleagues in Denmark tell us that they ‘lost’ a couple of their birds only for them to re-appear later when the tag regained charge. Watch this space.

By Saturday (25 June) morning Kasper had moved a further 80km (50 miles) SSW – taking him to some foothills with remnant patches of woodland 50km (30 miles) west of Bologna. This takes him into a landscape very similar to those in which previous recoveries of BTO-ringed Cuckoos in autumn have come from – presumably there is very good staging habitat here that allows cuckoos to feed up well before continuing their migrations.

Clement remains in the wooded hills east of Toulon – the habitat here (zoom in and drag the yellow man in the top left hand corner of the map for a streetview photo of the area) is structurally reminiscent of the wooded savannas we expect him to live in once he returns to Africa. Presumably he is feeding himself up in the warm weather before continuing his journey to the south…

Accurate fixes received for Martin on Saturday (25 June) evening show he was back precisely at the tagging location – just as we had been informed by Peter Allard on Friday!

We have not received any locations for Chris during the last two ‘on’ periods for his tag. We are currently investigating whether his tag is functioning correctly and hope to have more news later in the week.