We were expecting another update from Lyster’s tag first thing this morning. In fact, however, his tag has deviated from its designated transmission cycle for some reason (it could have been re-set by a magnetic field such as that from overhead power-lines), and we received updates for him yesterday afternoon (10 August). He was close to the Atlantic Coast of Morocco, about 20km (12 miles) SW of Casablanca. His route appears to have taken him directly across the Straits of Gibraltar, although of course we do not know precisely what route he took between his current and previous locations whilst his tag was not transmitting. The last message we received was at 2240hrs when he was still in the same place, so he does not appear to have started his desert crossing last night.
Lyster is the second Cuckoo, following Clement, to have taken the unexpected south-western route into Africa. Fascinatingly, he has taken an even more westerly route than his predecessor, having gone around the northern side of the Atlas Mountains and along the Atlantic Coast. There are many oases along the coast to the south of here and if he continues to take the coastal route, like we know many of our small migrants heading into West Africa, such as the Nightingale we tracked from Norfolk with a geolocator do, he will be minimising his desert crossing and the amount of inhospitable land he has to cross. This seems to make sense – what was more surprising to us was that the likes of Kasper, Clement and Chris crossed the desert at or close to its widest point. Mike Beer, who has driven through many of these areas, reports that the Hoggar and Tibesti areas, that were included in the parts of the Sahara these birds traversed, are in fact not as inhospitable as the sand deserts around them, and in places there may even be small pools and dew points with tiny bushes.
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