Updates from our Cuckoos

David’s tag resumed transmissions on 28 January, after a silence of 10 days, and showed that he was still in the same position within DRC that he had held since 27 December. Further locations received yesterday evening show that he had moved around 980km (608 miles) NNW from his previous location. 

This is the biggest movement we have seen from any of the Cuckoos for some time, so during his period of absence he was probably feeding up, fuelling for the journey he was about to make. He has moved completely over the block of more or less continuous closed canopy forest of the Congo Rainforest and is now in the southwest corner of the Central African Republic, 73km (45 miles) east of the border with Cameroon - he is in an area of what appears to be savannah with gallery forests and some forest blocks.

It looks like David has begun his journey back to the UK - this is about a week earlier than the first bird started to head north-west last year. Spring is just around the corner! 

BB's tag transmitted on the 29 January while Chance's tag sent locations in the early hours of this morning which show that they remain just a few miles apart - possibly as few as two miles.

Roughly 385km (240 miles) north of Lloyd's position, signals were received on the evening of 29 January from Chris' tag, but he has not moved from his previous location.  Last year, his tag was still transmitting from Congo on the 19 February. The next signal received after that wasn't until the 6 March when he turned up in Togo.  

Lloyd’s tag transmitted on the afternoon of the 31 January. He is still settled in the same area he has been in since around 7 December, but with David's new movement, could Lloyd be the next to head north? 

Transmissions were received from both our Welsh Cuckoos' tags on the evening of the 16 January but there have been no significant movements from David and Lloyd to report.  

Transmissions from Chris’s tag were received yesterday evening, he is currently 100km (62 miles) to the northeast of Chance and BB.  

Further signals in the last couple of days reveal that BB and Chance are now only 4km (2.5 miles) apart from each other – that’s closer than when they were first tagged at either end of Loch Katrine in The Trosssachs National Park in Scotland! From transmissions received yesterday, BB appears to have travelled 2km (just over a mile) to the west, while transmissions today show Chance has moved 2km north and then 1km east of his previous location.  They are so close now that you have to really zoom in on the map to be able to see both markers.

 A transmission on the evening of 10 January confirmed BB’s location as still being close to the river. A transmission in the early hours of 13 January showed he had moved 119 km (74 miles) almost directly north. He is now in the Cuvette-Ouest region. Chance is about 7.5km (5 miles) from this new position, his tag transmitting from this location a matter of hours after BB did so. Chance and BB have moved to the first block of continuous forest to the north of the grassland - gallery forest mosaics of the Teke Plateau and are now only 100km (62 miles) from Chris to their north-east.

Transmissions on 11 January show that Chance was in Gabon but a new position from the afternoon of 13 January revealed that he had moved 130km (80 miles) NE and had hopped over the border to join BB, our other Scottish-tagged Cuckoo and Chris, our remaining English-tagged Cuckoo, in Congo.

BB had recently moved north of his previous position and with Chance’s new movement, this has brought them very close together, no further than 20km (12 miles) but possibly within 7.5km (5 miles) or even closer - unfortunately the accuracy of the locations wasn't great enough to know for sure. 

Chance has travelled about 131km (81 miles) to the north-east of his location in Gabon. He is now on the border between the the Cuvette-Ouest and Cuvette regions of Congo. Chance and BB have moved to the first block of continuous forest to the north of the grassland - gallery forest mosaics of the Teke Plateau and are now only 100km (62 miles) from Chris to their north-east.