Updates from our Cuckoos

Charlie, the last of our tagged Cuckoos still in Europe, has finally left and crossed over the sea from his last location in Greece to reach Africa! We were beginning to worry that he was still in Greece but signals on the evening of the 14 September show he was in Libya. Since then he has been making his way south across the desert. 

Looking back at previous years, the only two Cuckoos to arrive in Africa later were BB on the 15 September 2014 and Lloyd on 3 October 2012. Both these Cuckoos also took the easterly route, heading to Libya but from Italy instead of Greece, as Charlie has done. 

Since the 10 September Coo has moved 810km (500 miles) further south, flying over Central African Republic.  By 13 September he had made it to northern Democratic Republic of Congo and areas of lowland forest. He is the first of our tagged Cuckoos to make it to the Congo Rainforest this year. 

After a few days, Larry has continued south and left the Tibesti Mountain area. He is now close to Lake Chad and safely across the desert.

The last signals we received from Jake back in June showed that he was still in central France. No further signals have been received since. Looking back, the tag temperature was unusually high during these tranmissions, indicating that Jake had died. We have no idea what the cause of death might have been.

A series of poor quality locations from Ash during early July showed that he was moving around in Croatia but we have heard nothing since. The tag data showed that he was alive when we last heard from it so it’s possible that his tag has failed.

We have received no further signals from Cookie. The data from his tag showed a low battery charge and although there is no evidence that he has died we think that this is likely. Dr Chris Hewson, lead scientist on the project visited northern Italy during the summer and found Cookie alive and well but in a location that held a very active Peregrine. Peregrines are known to take Cuckoos on migration and it is not impossible that this could have happened to Cookie.

We are still receiving poor quality signals from Chris that show he is still just north of the Tibesti Mountains in northern Chad. He has been here for almost four weeks and although we have no direct evidence that he has died, it seems unlikely that he would stay there for that length of time even though the area has recently received some rainfall. It may be that after over four years of following Chris's journey it may have come to an end. 

No further signals have been received from Fred’s tag since 1 August.  His tag has not been charging properly for several months and has been showing generally very low but erratic voltage. There is strong evidence that Fred’s tag has failed and nothing to suggest that he has died but it is unlikely that we will receive further signals to alert us to his progress. 

A number of locations from Fred on 1 August showed that he had left France and was in Spain, just west of Madrid.