Updates from our Cuckoos

Robinson is very settled in Sherwood Forest, largely using the area between Edwinstowe and Budby, right in the heart of the forest. Last year he left the forest for Africa on 20 June, it will be interesting to see what date he leaves this year.

Since arriving back Raymond seems to be fairly settled in the area just to the south of the Knepp Estate. However, he is covering a lot of ground and has been as far west as Pulborough and east as far as Hurstpierpont. His most recent location showed that he was almost midway between Dial Post and Partridge Green.

PJ has settled into his territory since arriving back at the end of April. He seems to favour the northwest corner of King's Forest and the Berner's Heath area. During his last three southbound migrations he has left the UK between the 24 June and 3 July, so he is likely to still be in the forest for the next three weeks or so.

Since he has been back in the Forest of Bowland Larry has been moving around his breeding site a lot. Whether this is because he is looking for female Cuckoos, or chasing female Cuckoos we don't really know but he is visiting every corner of his territory. In previous years Larry's departure date for his flight back to Africa have been 27 June, 2015, 24 June 2016, 20 June 2017 and 23 June 2018, so it looks like he will be around the Forest of Bowland for at least a couple of more weeks.

Lambert has been back in the UK for almost a month and during this time he has been moving around the Knepp Estate area. He has ranged as far north as Southwater and as far south as Ashington. In the last week he has spent quite a bit of time in the area between Whitehall and Dial Post.

Since arriving back on the Knepp Estate in late April, Knepp has been faithful to the site. During the last week or so he has been spending a lot of his time close to the village of Whitehall. Knepp was the first of our satellite tagged Cuckoos to arrive back in the UK on 25 April, in the past a few of our Cuckoos have headed back to Africa during the first week of June. Might Knepp be one of these? Watch this space.

Since arriving back at Carlton Marshes, Suffolk, during the first week of May, Carlton II seems to have been spending most of his time a little further to the west, just to the north of Haddiscoe Marshes and Thorpe. Currently he is further north still, frequenting the area between the rivers Yare and Waveney, close to Burgh Castle.

Finally at 20:59 last night we received an update showing that Raymond had flown the final 198 miles from northern France back across the Channel to the Knepp Estate in Sussex. All three birds tagged at Knepp last year have now successfully completed their migrations to Africa and back again.

Sussex Cuckoos Knepp and Raymond have already made it back to the Knepp Estate where they were tagged last year. Arriving fashionably late to the party, we hope, will be the third Sussex Cuckoo, Raymond. Also tagged on the Knepp Estate, Raymond spent the winter in Congo, approximately 750 Km (466 miles) north of Lambert and Knepp. Since crossing the Sahara Raymond has been making steady progress north. Over the last few days he has flown 555 Km (345 miles) north east from La Higuera in the province of Avila, Castile & Leon in Spain and is now near Lencouacq in Nouvelle-Aquitaine in south-western France. He now has just 766 Km (476 miles) of his 14,000 Km (8,700 miles) journey to go until he is also back at Knepp.

An update received from Lambert's tag at 04:50 this morning showed that Lambert had succesfully covered the remaining 498 Km (309 miles) from his last location near Mazieres-en-Gatine in west central France to his breeding grounds in Sussex. Lambert is one of three Cuckoos tagged on the Knepp Estate.