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Updates from our Cuckoos

Read the latest updates from our Cuckoos on their epic migration between the UK and tropical Africa, or track their movements in real-time on our Cuckoo migration map.

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Patch continues to Guinea

01 Apr 2014

From Ghana, Patch continued onwards and by the evening of 31 March he was in Guinea, 1100km (690 miles) further north-west.  He is just to the west of the outer edge of the Guinea Highlands,  a densely forested mountainous plateau which runs from southeastern Guinea through to northern Sierra Leone and Liberia, and northwestern Ivory Coast. 

This new location means that he is in running for the most westerly Cuckoo, however, poor quality signals suggest that David continued on from Mali and could be in either Sierra Leone or Guinea, and possibly further west than Patch. We will have to await further signals to confirm his location. 

David in Mali

31 Mar 2014

David has made a massive most to the west, leaving Cameroon behind and travelling at least 2420km (1500 miles) to a location in Mali by early evening of 28 March. 

Patch travels to Ghana

31 Mar 2014

Poor quality signals, received on 27 March, from Patch's tag revealed that he had left Cameroon and was on the move.  Those signals located him in Togo and two days later further signals confirmed he had continued on in a westerly direction and was in Ghana. He is just west of Lake Volta, a place where several of our Cuckoos have stopped having moved into west Africa.  

Whortle joins the pack

27 Mar 2014

Signals received on 26 March show Whortle has left Cameroon and is now in Ivory Coast having completed a  journey of 2050km (1290 miles).  It’s not clear how long the journey took as we don’t know when he started moving west. His new location is just 6km (4 miles) from both Skinner and Chris’s locations. 

Waller back-tracks

24 Mar 2014

Waller had been in the west of Ivory Coast but has backtracked about 330km (200 miles) in to centre of the country and is now in the protected area of the Parc National d'Abokouamekro, to the west of Lake Kossou, the largest lake in Ivory Coast. Presumably feeding conditions weren't good in his westerly location and so he has moved on to find somewhere more suitable. 

Chris in Ivory Coast

24 Mar 2014

Chris is the most recent Cuckoo to have joined the five others in Ivory Coast! Having been in Ghana until at least the 18 March, he then flew 215km (130 miles) which took him over the border and into Ivory Coast by the 21 March. He is now only 75km (45 miles) from Skinner's location and 70km ( 42 miles) from Ken's location. 

Livingstone moves into West Africa

20 Mar 2014

Livingstone had moved further north within Cameroon but the last signal received from this more northerly location was on 12 March. After this we received several low quality signals that revealed he was on the move. His new location popped up on the map yesterday, 19 March, when a good quality signal was finally received, and revealed that he was in Ivory Coast, close to border with Guinea. From the previous signals we can see that he has been in the area since around the 16 March, making him the fourth Cuckoo to move into West Africa. He is now just 20km (12 miles) north-east of Derek. 

Ken in Ivory Coast

19 Mar 2014

Ken had moved 100km (600 miles) by the 14 March and was just inside Ivory Coast. Waller and Derek are also in Ivory Coast, but further to the west.  

Skinner is on his way – over the sea!

19 Mar 2014
Skinner is the sixth of our tagged Cuckoos this spring to undertake the second leg of the journey back to the UK, however, his route to West Africa is a very interesting one. At 3am on 17 March he was in Cameroon, the battery voltage of his tag was low but the recorded temperature was high, c. 36 degrees which pointed to him being stationary at this time.
 
The tag sprang into life on 18 March, between 10am-4pm, this time the temperature was low – 12-20 degrees, so he was in active migration. He was still in migration mode at 5pm but by 6.18pm he was presumably on the ground as the temperature had increased to 30 degrees.
 
During his transmission cycle he travelled 500km in 9.75 hours, so was flying at a speed of 51kmph. It is difficult to say exactly what time he left Cameroon to begin his journey into West Africa but we suspect it was at dusk (around 6pm) on the 17 March. 
 
After leaving Cameroon, we picked him up again over the sea in the Gulf of Guinea. To make it to this point he would have been flying for 16-17 hours and so was in active migration during daylight hours- not something we've seen before, except when flying over desert! From here he carried on for another 520km, making landfall in Togo around 6pm on the evening of the 18 March.
 
We have had many instances of cuckoos migrating over the Sahara by day but none before of them properly migrating by day at other points on the annual cycle (except one which moved across northern Ghana by day, but not in one movement at altitude in this case, and therefore more accurately described as searching for suitable areas than migrating). We guess that Skinner found himself over the sea at daybreak, having started his flight from unusually far south in Cameroon, and decided to carry on towards his target area.

Patch close to BB

19 Mar 2014

By 15 March, Patch had travelled 435km (270 miles) further north within Cameroon. This new location means that he is now only 20km (12 miles) from fellow tagged Cuckoo, BB.  David is also relatively close, just 80km (50 miles) further south from Patch’s location.

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