Updates from our Cuckoos

Skinner was still in Congo on 14 November but his new location, received yesterday, really surprised us! Skinner had moved 550km, heading even further south, and as of yesterday afternoon he was in Angola.

Not only is this a brand new country for any of our tagged Cuckoos since the project began, it is also the furthest south, by several 100 kilometres, that any of our Cuckoos have ever ventured. If you are surprised by this – take a look at what the Cuckoos from Belarus have done here. 

We are still following two of the four Cuckoos tagged in Dartmoor earlier this spring. Tor is in Congo, west of the Téké Plateau and Whortle is in the closed canopy forest in DRC, between Lac Mai and Lac Mumba and is midway between Patch and Waller.

The other two Cuckoos tagged there both perished in August, Ryder struggled to cross the desert once he arrived in Africa, while Dart made it to Mallorca but wa likely affecfed by dry conditions and wildfires there.

Of the Cuckoos tagged in Scotland this year, Livingstone is still on the edge of the Téké Plateau, whilst Patch is in an area of closed canopy forest with seasonally flooded grassland west of Lac Mai in DRC. Waller is in the swamp forests about 120km (75 miles) ESE of Chris and Derek. All three of these birds could be in their final mid-winter locations, although we might well see Waller at least move further south towards the gallery forest / savannah mosaics.

Concerns are mounting for Sussex, as we haven’t received any transmissions from his tag in more than two weeks and the temperature sensor on the last transmission gave an unusually low reading. We would normally expect this to be around body temperature, since the tag is fitted to the body, so a low temperature reading normally indicates a problem.  

By 1 November, Livingstone had moved north-west from his position in Congo to eastern Gabon, just inside it's border with Congo. 

The last signal from Skinner's tag in Gabon was on the 1 November. A couple of days afterwards he popped up in the Reserve de chasse de la Lefini in the Pool region of Congo, 340km further south-east from his previous location. This location is about 120km (75 miles) north of Kinshasa. He is now one of two of our most southerly Cuckoos, David being the other, who is 480km (300 miles) to the east. 

Over the weekend, Chance has moved south from Nigeria to Gabon, covering a total of about 1320km (820 miles), as he crossed over Cameroon and ventured further south-east. Signals late last night and early this morning show he is now in the Haut-Ogooue region of east Gabon and is now in the Congo Rainforest, where he will spend the winter. 

David has moved from the south area of Salonga National Park north-east to the north section of the park, a journey of 130km (80 miles). The park is Africa's largest tropical rainforest reserveand is largely accessible only via river.

By lunchtime on 29 October, Whortle had travelled 550km (340 miles) south-east from his  location in Congo and crossed over the border and in to the Democratic Republic of Congo.  He is to the south-east of Lake Tumba (or Ntomba), a shallow lake in the Bikoro Territory which is connected to the Congo River and which lies at the center of the Tumba-Ngiri-Maindombe area, a designated Wetland of International Importance.

This new location places him 140km (85 miles) south of Waller and 200km (120 miles) south-east of Chris and Derek. Patch is 130km (80 miles) to the south-west, in an area close to Lake Mai-Ndombe. 

Waller has now spent a month in this area. He arrived here at around the same time as Chris, who is slightly further west and who has over-wintered there for the last two years, and has shown no signs of moving on since. Time will tell whether this is his final wintering destination or not. This year, Derek has also joined Chris and is even closer to his location than Waller. This is the first year that we have seen other Cuckoos in addition to Chris using this area.