Updates from our Cuckoos

With five tagged Cuckoos closing in on the UK, it looked like the first to return would be Ellis, PJ or Victor II. New updates received on Monday 18 April showed that Ellis had held on to his early lead and became the first of our tagged Cuckoos to make it back to the UK. He had flown the remaining 1,040 Km (646 miles) from his last location in France to his breeding grounds in Scotland. He is now back on the shores of Loch Arklet in the Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park where he will stay for the next 6-12 weeks or so. Bravo Ellis!

Calypso has had a busy morning, flying approximately 467 km (290 miles) from his last location in northern Spain, across the Bay of Biscay to the western coast of France. He is now on the Island of Oleron due west of Rochefort. The Moeze Oleron nature reserve on and around the island is a protected area for migratory birds so Calypso has chosen a great place to stop. 

New updates received this morning show that Victor II has flown 575 km (357 miles) north from his last location in northern France to England. He has spent the last few hours close to the town of Winsford in Cheshire. So if you are in or around Winsford today and you hear a Cuckoo it could well be Victor II! He has approximately 365 km to fly before reaching his breeding grounds in the Trossachs. 

Over the last few days Victor II has made good progress north, leaving northern Spain and progressing up through France. By Tuesday evening he has reached Nouvelle-Aquitaine in south western France. He didn't hang arorund though and by midnight last night he had flown a further 255 km (159 miles) north and was in the Perche National Park between Normandy and the Loire Valley. When we next hear from him, will he be back in the UK? Stay tuned to find out!

New updates that came in at around 6am this morning show that JAC has flown the remaining 582 km (362 miles) from France back to his breeding grounds in north Wales. The most recent update showed that he was within a mile of his tagging location. So if over the next few weeks you find yourself in the World's End area of Denbighshire, between Llangollen and Wrexham, be sure to listen out for the call of the Cuckoo, it might just be JAC!

We were delighted to receive further updates from Daniel's tag last night showing that he has flown 924 km (574 miles) north-north west from his last location on Sicily. At around 10pm last night he was close to the fishing village of Camogli on the Portofino peninsula approximately 10 miles east of Genoa. He is now slightly further north than Worcestershire Cuckoo Calypso. Might he beat Calypso, Victor II and JAC back to the UK? 

Calypso didn't stop for long on the Costa del Sol, he has flown 295 km (184 miles) north and has reached Extramadura. He is now close to the Orellan Reservoir and the internationally important Sierra de Pela wetlands. He is now ahead of JAC and Daniel and just behind Victor II. 

Calypso has arrived in Europe having crossed the Straits of Gibraltar over the weekend. He is now close to San Pedro de Alcantara, approximately 10 km west of Marbella on the Coast del Sol.

New updates received early yesterday morning (24 April) showed that PJ had flown the final 1,000 km from northern Spain and was back in the UK. Further updates received since tell us that he is safely back on his breeding grounds in the King's Forest in Suffolk having completed his sixth tracked migration between the UK and Africa. Each complete migration from Suffolk to his wintering grounds in the Congo Basin and back again is approximately 16,000 km (9,940 miles) so we have now tracked him over at least 96,000 km (59,640 miles). He was a second year bird when we tagged him so he had already completed a full migration cycle before we tagged him in 2016. This means that over the course of his life so far he has flown 112,000 km (69,580 miles) on migration alone. It is a wonder he has any energy left to chase around his breeding grounds defending his territory and searching for mates! The oldest ringed UK Cuckoo was caught alive at Wicken Fen in Cambridgeshire in 1983 - 6 years, 11 months and 2 days after he was ringed as an adult, making him at least 7 years, 11 months and 2 days old. PJ will have to survive another year to vie for the crown of the UK's oldest known Cuckoo but his achievements so far have already exceeded our wildest expectations - what a bird!

As we had not heard from Cuckoo Daniel since mid March when he was in Cameroon, and our other Cuckoos were making good progress towards the UK we were expecting to have to announce that we had lost him. However, we received some signals from Daniel's tag at 04:46 this morning showing that he is in Sicily, 3,780 km (2,347 miles) from his last know location! He is in the south eastern corner of the island, 18km east of the city of Gela. Hopefully this marks the return of regular updates from Daniel's tag.