Updates from our Cuckoos

Our last record of Chris was from Ivory Coast on the 2 April at 11:09 BST. We next heard from him approximately 2,500 km away at 2100 on the 4 April on the southern edge of the Grand Erg Oriental Desert, a large field of sand dunes within the Sahara desert.

We tracked his desert crossing for 6 hours and he travelled about 350km. He should have finished his Saharan crossing by about breakfast time 5 April.  If he stays on the same track he should end up in north-east Algeria, approximately half way between Algiers and Tunis. We look forward to seeing which way he is coming back to the UK - to Spain or through Sardinia or Sicily through to mainland Italy... make sure you check back soon to find out!

Martin has successfully completed his desert crossing – by the evening of 3 April he was settled in woodland high in the Atlas Mountains of the Sidi-bel-Abbes region of Algeria. He is presumably taking a well-earned rest and undertaking a period of recuperation before heading north to Britain.

Fascinatingly, he is 37km (22 miles) south of the location that Clement stopped at before crossing the desert in a southwards direction, having crossed the Mediteranean from Cabo de Gata in southern Spain to the Algerian coast near Oran. We are excited to see whether he will re-trace Clement’s steps in reverse, thus taking a direct route back to Britain and forming a loop in his migration route.

On 31 March, Chris remained just west of the Ghanaian border in Côte d’Ivoire (Ivory Coast).

On 1 April, Lyster remained in the northern part of Digya NP in Ghana. He has been in this area for nearly four weeks now and, although he left the UK later than the other Cuckoos in August, we might expect him to head north soon.

We last received a location for Kasper on 26 March. As he was the first of the Cuckoos to head into West Africa at the beginning of his journey, we might expect him to follow Martin across the Sahara in the next few days.

Having received no locations for Martin since 18 March, we suspected we were witnessing the now-familiar pattern of a tag failing to charge for some time prior to the bird’s departure and were anticipating it bursting into life when he moved on.

During the afternoon of 1 April, we duly received a series of poorly-resolved locations that, taken together, showed that Martin was making his northwards desert crossing. During the several hours of transmissions as he moved from Mali into Algeria, he was moving over the earth’s surface at average speeds in excess of 100km (62 mph) per hour!

It is notable that Martin is the only one of our tagged Cuckoo who is more than two years old; as older birds are generally expected to arrive back before younger birds.

Sadly, the transmission period finished before he had completed his desert crossing and we won't receive further signals for a couple of days but we can't wait to see what he does next!

Lyster hasn't moved any further, a transmission on the 24 March shows and he is now the most easterly Cuckoo and the only one remaining in Ghana.  Perhaps we will see further movements from him soon?

We received a transmission from Chris' tag in the early hours of yesterday morning which showed no further movement since he hopped over the border almost two weeks ago. We expect all four Cuckoos will be likely to attempt to cross the Sahara soon so watch this space!

We haven't received any further transmissions since the 18 March for Martin.  The weather there is currently warm and wet with thunderstorms forecast for tonight and more rain and cloud tomorrow. The weather is forecast to change at the end of the week. Could the onset of sunshine and light winds from the south provide ideal conditions for his next move?

Kasper's tag transmitted yesterday and showed that he has remained at his position within Ivory Coast. There have been no further movements from the other Cuckoos so he remains the most westerly - for now at least!