Updates from our Cuckoos

Norfolk Cuckoo Attenborough has been a particularly fascinating bird to follow his year as he made that extraordinary movement from Spain to Greece. Sadly though we think that route may have signaled the end for Attenborough, possible because he was unable to build up sufficient fat reserves to fuel his crossing of the Sahara. He made it as far as the Tibesti Mountains in northern Chad, where his journey ended. We don't know exactly what happened to him but those of you who have been following the project for a while may recall that this is the same area that we lost Cuckoo Chris. Attenborough's travels will of course contribute useful data to our growing understanding of Cuckoo migration.   

Since our last update, JAC has flown 357 Km (222 miles) south east into central Nigeria. He is now 200 Km north of the capital Abuja and just 55 Km south of Worcestershire Cuckoo Calypso. 

The latest updates received from Daniel's tag show him in the south eastern corner of Mali. He was heading south towards Niger and was a little north of the Ansongo Giraffe Reserve. 

AJ has continued his journey east, swapping Togo for Nigeria. He is now one of five tagged Cuckoos in the country, along with PJ, JAC, Calypso and Ellis. He is currently 235 Km west of the capital Abuja. 

A new update from PJ's tag this morning show that he has flown 390 Km (243 miles) south east and over the border from Niger into Nigeria. He is now in north west Nigeria, approximately 195 Km (121 miles) east of JAC and 200 Km (195miles) north west of Calypso. Ellis and AJ are also currently in Nigeria.

Welsh Cuckoo Daniel arrived in northern Italy on 8 July where he stayed for several weeks. An update received on 10 August showed him on or over Sardinia in the Mediterranean. By the early hours of this morning (Friday 13 August), he had flown 2,190 Km (1,360 miles) south over the Sahara and had just crossed the border from Algeria into Niger. Over the next few hours he continued south west, flying to the west of the Air mountains. By 10:49 this morning he was in the far north western corner of Niger, approximately 400km (250 miles) north of Victor II and PJ. 

Over the last few days, AJ has flown 670 Km (416 miles) east from Burkina Faso, over Ghana and into Togo. He is now close to the village of Natchitipi in the Bassar Prefecture in the Kara Region of north-western Togo.

New updates arrived last night showing that Harry has flown 2,000 km (1,242 miles) south from Spain, and is currently crossing the Sahara in Mauritania. Last night he passed over the "Eye of Africa" (Richat Structure), an amazing geological structure which is so big it can be seen from space.  By the time the last update was sent at 23:05 last night he had reached the southern edge of the Akchar desert region of the Sahara and had approximately 500km to fly before completing his desert crossing.

Since our last update PJ has flown a further 1,022 Km (635 miles) south, passing through the highlands of the Hoggar mountains in southern Algeria and crossing into Mali. By 03:55 this morning he had reached south east Mali and was just outside the Ansongo Giraffe Reserve (réserve partielle de faune d'Ansongo Ménaka), a 1,750,000 hectare protected area designated in 1950 to try to conserve the last remaining Giraffes in this part of Africa. Unfortunately the Giraffes have disappeared but it remains a special area for wildlife and people.  

Between 04:02 and 08:54 yesterday morning we got several updates from Attenborough showing that he has finally left Greece and is crossing the Sahara. He has covered 1,651 Km (1,026 miles) so far and is now on the northern edge of the Tibesti mountains in southern Libya. After his extraordinary detour from Spain to Greece, it was a relief to see him on the move again. He has around 1,000Km to fly before reaching the other side of the desert, fingers crossed!