Updates from our Cuckoos

On Tuesday this week, PJ was still in Cameroon but he has since flown 2,085 Km (1,295 miles) west to Ivory Coast. He stopped briefly in Benin en-route. He is now 180 Km (111 miles) north west of the capital Yamoussoukro. We expect this to be PJ's last stop before he crosses the Sahara. In 2017 he left Ivory Coast to cross the Sahara on 8th April and in 2018 he departed on the 6th April.

Having spent the last month in Cameroon PJ is now on his way west.  A couple of poor locations around breakfast on 5 March showed he was on the move and in western Cameroon. By mid-morning he was in central Nigeria and by the early evening had crossed the border into Benin, completing a journey of 897km (557 miles) in 12 hours. This puts his average speed for this journey at 46mph. He is currently in an area of open forest in southern, central Benin. His map will update automatically overnight to show his new position in Benin.

After the poor location from Robinson’s tag on 2 March he checked in again on 4 March and surprised us all – he wasn’t in Nigeria, he was much further west and in Ivory Coast. He is now just under 2,000km (1,250 miles) from his wintering location in Gabon and is in fairly open forest to the north of the town of Kouassidatekrou.

Having spent the whole of February in the Afi Mountain Wildlife Sanctuary, on the 1 March Thomas moved 65km (41 miles) north and west leaving it behind him. He is currently in farmland to the north of Adipke, Nigeria.

During the last few days Sherwood has moved north and east and has crossed the border into the Republic of the Congo. During this time he has travelled 145km (90 miles). He is just to the north of the Djoua River and the border with Gabon.

Lambert is still our most southerly tagged Cuckoo but he has begun to move north. In the early hours of 3 March his tag placed him in southern Congo, 366km (228 miles) north and east of his coastal stopover location in Angola.

Around breakfast on 4 March we received a poor location from Knepp’s tag that placed him in central Cameroon, 569km (353 miles) north and west of his most recent location in Gabon. We will have to wait for good quality locations from his tag to confirm this but it does look like he has started his move into West Africa.

Bowie has left Ghana and is now in Ivory Coast, 545km (339 miles) from his last stopover location. It does look like he had a short stopover close to the western border of Ghana before crossing over into Ivory Coast. He is currently in forest on the outskirts of Ntopadrikro

Victor is still in western CAR, moving around the gallery forest he has been in for the last five weeks. It will be interesting to see if he moves before the 9 March this year.