Updates from our Cuckoos

Kasper has been the least mobile of the Cuckoos so far and has remained in the same area since his capture. He is spending most of his time in the Hickling Broad and Horsey areas, where positions received on the morning of Monday 6th June placed him.

Soon after being caught and tagged, Lyster moved off 12km (7.5 miles) south-west to the vicinity of Lingwood. He remained in this general area for a week, although he made an excursion 10km (6 miles) away to the south-east outskirts of Norwich on 1st June (but was back by the evening).

On the evening of 3rd June, he roosted very close to Reedham in the Yare Valley, 18km (11 miles) south of the tagging location.

Martin remained in the area next to Breydon Water that he had been tagged in until the morning of 29th May, when he moved 11km north to Winterton Dunes. He remained in this general area, moving up to 6km (4 miles) inland at times, until the morning of Sunday 5th June when he moved back towards his original location and had reached at least as far as Caister-on-Sea.

Clement remained in the vicinity of the BTO’s Nunnery Lakes reserve for two weeks after being fitted with his transmitter. The last high-quality location we have shows he was still there in the evening of Thursday 2nd June.

Totally unexpected, a series of low-quality but seemingly reliable positions received on the morning of Sunday 5th June showed that Clement had already left the country and was c.160km (100 miles) south of Paris in Centre Region! This onset of migration is a full month earlier than we had expected full-grown Cuckoos to leave Britain. It may prove to be that one year old Cuckoos such as Clement leave earlier than older adult birds but this is a very surprisingly early start to his autumn migration.