Updates from our Cuckoos

We have received no further positions for Clement since last Sunday (3 July), and have now had two ‘on’ periods for his tag in which no transmissions have been received. Given our recent experience with Chris we are not unduly worried but it will be a relief when we do receive some new positions for him. The charge on his tag had dropped to a very low level when we last heard from him on 3 July.

Despite, in our last blog, trying to gently prepare people for a possible death in our Cuckoo family, Chris has come alive again! A series of fixes have shown his tag is charging and that he is in the Moselle region of France. He has moved southwards 280km to an area of woods, 40km west of Strasbourg. This area is a popular tourist destination with some spectacular views (try googling the "Pays du Dabo"), so hopefully he is enjoying the views!

Martin, along with Chris, has been the star of the show this past weekend. He surprised us last week by rapidly moving into France on the 30 June, and when we received the next signal, he had joined Clement and Kasper on the edge of the Mediterranean. He turned up in northern Italy in the Ligurian region, 50km west of Genoa, moving approx 430km in the 2 days.

Lyster remains in Broadland and a good quality fix on 2 July put him just to the north of Raveningham. He is the last remaining tagged Cuckoo left in the UK.

Clement is another cuckoo where we are having battery charging issues. We received a good series of high-quality fixes on 30 June but only one low accuracy fix on 3 July. We suspect he has not moved as this was in exactly the same place as the fixes a few days before.

Kasper has remained in the same area until at least 30th June. His tag does not appear to be charging particularly well so we are only getting intermittent, low accuracy fixes. The single fix we received was of such low accuracy we are not sure if he has moved or not!

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Martin has left Breydon Water. At 0921hrs this morning (30 June) he popped up in the Auvergne region of central France – having travelled 715km on a heading near to due south since Tuesday. He is now in a landscape of arable and grazing fields with scattered woodlots (see below for photo from streetview) about 100km south-west of where Clement staged in Burgundy.

On Tuesday afternoon, Lyster was spending time on the Loddon side of the Yare valley – several accurate locations in the evening place him adjacent to Hardley floods.

A low accuracy location received this morning (30 June) suggest that Kasper has remained in the same area 50km (30 miles) west of Bologna.