Updates from our Cuckoos

Newly tagged on 10 June in the New Forest, Hampshire, Cuckoo 161321 hasn't hung around. On 16 June he had moved to the Isle of Wight, where he seemed to spend a couple of hours in the late evening close to Brighstone. By midnight he had almost crossed the English Channel and was close to the French coast, an hour later he was in Normandy, eight miles west of Bayeux. By 2.45am he had travelled another 73km further south and east but he didn't stop here, by first light on 17 June he had reached Javron-les-Chapelle, 258km (160m) south of the Isle of Wight. He didn't stop here either, by the evening of 18 June he had travelled a further 242km (150 miles) southwest and was close to La Rochelle on the west coast. On the evening of 20 June he was even further south and was close to Biscarrosse in the south west of the country, but again he didn't stop here long, by breakfast on 21 June he was in Spain just north of Rabanera del Pinar, 158km (98 miles) south of Bilbao and 1004km (624 miles) from his New Forest tagging site. On 23 June he was off again, flying east another 174km (108 miles). He is curremtly in the province of Guadalajara, just north of Bocigano, and the furthest south of all of the tagged Cuckoos.

Despite having to run the gauntlett of some pretty heavy rainfall, Disco Tony is not hanging around. Locations received from his tag during the afternoon of 17 June showed that he had left Hampshire and crossed the Channel. He is currently in the Champagne-Ardenne region of France on the outskirts of Bailly-aux-Forges, and hopefully enjoying a massive improvement in the weather. It is currently 29 degrees C in Bailly-aux-Forges.

During the early morning of 21 June we received a couple of locations from David's tag that showed he was on his way back to Africa. Despite having to dodge some pretty heavy rainfall, he headed down to the New Forest, Hampshire and probably left the UK via the Isle of Wight. He is currently in northern France just south west of Dreux, and 526km (326 miles) south east of his breeding site atTregaron.

On the 20th May we received a report from a member of the public who had just found a bird's foot in Thetford Forest, Norfolk, that was carrying a metal ring. It was thought that the foot, being yellow, might belong to a small bird of prey. A search of the BTO ringing database showed that it belonged to Stanley. Whilst we will never know for sure what happened to him, we suspect that he fell victim to a predator of some sort.

Since arriving in the area just east of Kendal, Peckham has remained settled here. During the late evening on 15 June he was 8km (5 miles) southeast of Kendal, and just north of Killington Reservoir and Lily Mere.

Since arriving here on 4 May, Larry has remained in the area just north of Stocks Reservoir, very close to the location at which he was tagged on 3 June 2015.

Around breakfast time on 15 June, a location received from Disco Tony showed that he had left Wales and was on his way to Africa.The location put him in Hampshire, 2km (1.2 miles) north of Standon, just west of Winchester. It is good to see him at the very start of his long journey south.

With the summer nearing its end for our Cuckoos, in the past five years several of our tagged Cuckoos have left the UK during early June, it is good to see that David is still moving around the area close to Tregaron and his tagging site. Around mid-morning on 14 June he was 3.25km (2 miles) northwest of Garthynty.

When we last heard from Coo on 3 May, everything seemed OK with him. He had arrived back on his breeding grounds and was moving around quite widely. The information from his tag was also indicating that everything was fine but then everything stopped and we have received nothing since. Of course we don't really know what happened but with the failure being so catastrophic and sudden we have to consider that Coo has been predated.

Two locations received from Disco Tony's tag at dusk on the 8 May showed that he was back in Wales and was in an area of woodland just to the south of Devil's Bridge.