Updates from our Cuckoos

Coo is settled in the area of the Congo rainforest in DRC that he arrived in on 13 September. We last heard from him at 19.23 on the evening of the 3rd November. It is likely that he will stay in this area for the next couple of months.

David has continued his journey south, travelling 600 miles south from his last position in the Central African Republic to the northern part of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. In previous years he has wintered about 500 miles further south so we expect him to make another journey before reaching his final wintering areas.

Since the last update, Larry has flown almost 600 miles south from his last location in the south of Chad to the south-western corner of the Central African Republic. He is probably now in or at the edge of the Congolian lowland forests.

David has made a move south from Chad and into Central African Republic, travelling 215km (130 miles).  

Disco Tony has made an interesting and unprecedented movement over the past week, flying almost 400 miles west from Chad into Nigeria. Only Dudley is further west. We will have to wait to see how long he spends here and where he goes to next.   

There have been no signals from Derek's tag since the end of August. Looking back at the data we received shows the battery charge was ok and there is no evidence of death. However, the most likely explanation for a sudden loss of signals is that Derek has sadly died. 

There have been no further signals from Hennah's tag since the middle of August. We think that his tag battery charge is to blame for this as it had dwindled even further before the last messages. The good news is that the temperature data indicated that he was still alive. Signals have been intermittant for some time and between February and April of this year we also went without signals, before he then surprised us by transmitting back in the UK safe and sound. Hopefully we will receive some more in future so that we can continue to follow his journey. 

Vigilamus is the third of our Cuckoos to continue south to the Congo rainforest this year  Having left southern Chad sometime after the 2 October, by the morning of the 4 October he was in northern Republic of Congo, 890km (555 miles) further south. By the 6 he had covered a further 540km (335 miles)  to the Democratic Republic of Congo, just south of Mbandaka, and was in the Congolian Swamp forests that Chris spent the winter in the first two years we tracked him.

Since the 3 October, Peckham has left Chad and been slowly travelling further south, covering 1300km ( 810 miles)  to reach a new location in the Gabon, in the the depths of the Congo Rainforest by the early morning of 8 October.  Three of our other tagged Cuckoos are also in the rainforest, although they are further east in Democratic Republic of Congo.

With no further news from Chris the Cuckoo, whose last transmission was from the middle of the desert, we have to conclude that he has sadly died. Chris was satellite-tagged in spring 2011 and we have been following his journey for the last four years as he traveled to and from Africa. See our celebration of Chris' journey and just how much he has contributed to our understanding of Cuckoo migration.