Updates from our Cuckoos

Chance is currently the most northerly of all the tagged Cuckoos within Africa. He has moved only a small distance from the location he arrived in after crossing the desert. Last year he moved to Lake Chad after a matter of days so we are assuming that because he has yet to move on, conditions in the area must be favourable at the moment. 

Signals show that from his position in Sudan, David changed course and began to head in a south-westerly direction. By yesterday lunch time he was in the very north of the Central African Republic, having successfully completed his desert crossing. He is about 100km (60 miles) north of the Aouk Aoukale Faunal Reserve.

From Greece on the evening of the 22 August, David has crossed the Mediterranean Sea and by the morning of 25 August, his tag transmitted from the North Kudafan region of Sudan – 2680km (1660 miles) further south from his previous location!  This places him in the desert and he will have roughly another 450km (280 miles) to go before completing his crossing. His most recent movement is very similar to last years journey, although he has made the trip across Sudan further to the east. To see this, view David's map and choose 2012 from the drop down options above - this will show both last year's route and that taken so far this year. 

Continuing onwards quickly, by early evening on 22 August, Nick was 940km (585 miles) further south-east from his previous location in Nigeria and was in Cameroon.  Transmission located him in the Adamawa region close to the edge of the Mbang Mountains and 24km (15 miles) east of the capital of Ngaoundéré, which has a population of over 152,500.  

On the evening of 22 August, transmissions from David’s tag revealed that he had left his location in Montenegro and travelled 470km (290 miles) south. At that time he was near the Greek islet, Apasa, to the east of Ithaca, one of the Ionian Islands in Greece.  A further poor quality signal 40 mins later shows him south of Petalas, the largest island of the Echinades, among the Ionian Islands. 

Waller, Chris, Sussex and BB are all still in Chad and sending regular transmissions. Last year Chris was the first of our tagged Cuckoos to move south of Chad, arriving in the Central African Republic by the 18 September. Not long after this the Cuckoos moved on to the Congo Rainforest. 

Ken has travelled 330km (210 miles) east within Burkina Faso and is now the only remaining tagged Cuckoo in the country. Both Skinner and Nick have left and continued eastwards. 

The outlook for Dart is looking fairly bleak with no further transmissions to report. We think it is likely that he has perished in Mallorca. A supporter of the project emailed in to let us know that just after Dart's arrival there was a huge wildfire on Mallorca. It's likely that conditions weren't good if the area was very dry so even if he wasn't in the area affected by the fire, he may have struggled to find food. 

No further signals have been received which means we haven’t heard anything from Nelson’s tag for almost five weeks. We are a little worried this may spell bad news for Nelson, however, it is too early to tell yet. 

Unfortunately the only further signals we have received from Ryder show that he did not continue to complete his desert crossing. The signals show that he backtracked a short distance into central Mauritania, a location from which he has not continued onwards from. He has now been in the middle of the desert for 5 days. We think it is likely that he did not have the fuel reserves needed to complete the journey, and was unable to feed up in the barren landscape in which he stopped.