Updates from our Cuckoos

No further movements from Chris to report but transmissions were received from his tag as 2012 ticked into 2013. We hope this year is more favorable for migrating Cuckoos than last year! 

David has travelled south from the swamp forest. On the 22 December a transmission revealed he was 116 km  (72 miles) south from his previous position and by the 24 December he had continued 39 km ( 24 miles), crossing the Lukenie river. He is now close to the position he held on the 6 December, on the edge of the forest zone. A further signal recieved this morning indicates he is still in this area.

There have been no further eastwards movements from Lloyd. The last transmission received on 26 December shows that he has remained in the area of gallery forest he moved to on 7 December. Although both he and David, the other remaining Welsh Cuckoo, are both in the Democratic Republic of Congo, over 620km (385 miles) separates their current positions.

BB's tag transmitted in the afternoon on Christmas day. His position within Congo remains unchanged. Chance, the only other remaining Scottish-tagged Cuckoo, is the closest to his position, around 100 km (60 miles) to the southwest.

Transmissions received from Chance's tag in the early hours of this morning show that he is still in Gabon. He is roughly 25km (16 miles) west from the border with Congo.  BB, the only other remaining Scottish-tagged Cuckoo, is the closest to his position, around 100 km (60 miles) to the southeast.

Signals received on Christmas Eve show that Chris remained in his new location in the Cuvette region of Congo.

Transmissions received early this morning show that Chris was 225 km (140 miles) southwest of his previous location, though still within Congo. He is now in the north of the Cuvette region.  

Roy we still hope is alive but, given that it has been so long since the tag had sufficient charge to transmit, we suspect it will have degraded so that it might not be able to turn on, even if subjected to enough sunlight at some point in the future. His last location is much further north than the other four Cuckoos current positions. We would expect that he would also move south and given that the tag hasn't transmitted recently, we may assume that we are down to tracking just five Cuckoos.

Last week we wondered whether David was heading for the savannah-forest mosaic just to the south of his latest position. It appears the answer was no! Between Thursday 6 and Saturday 8 December, he moved around 160km (100 miles) approximately NW from his previous position – this movement has taken him away from the edge of the forest zone into an area dominated by what looks like swamp forest, although it is hard to be sure form the Google earth map. We wonder whether David is actively seeking this kind of habitat (as Chris appears to have done) or whether he was simply not aware of what habitat lay in front of him before turned around.