Updates from our Cuckoos

By the 11 May Chester had covered the 1500km (930 miles) from his last location in Spain and returned to his breeding grounds at Ashdown Forest in Sussex, becoming the ninth of our tagged Cuckoos to make it back to the UK.

Jake has made it back to England after successfully completeing his Sahara crossing. Ths last good signal we had from Jake's tag was in Benin so we were pleased to see him safely return. 

No further signals have been received from Emsworthy's tag since 19 March. He was still alive when we last heard from his tag - but the charge was very low. We may well here from it again after he's crossed the Sahara but it's possible the battery will have degraded too much for that to happen. 

Fred is back on the map after a period of silence and has finally moved north from Ivory Coast and made his crossing of the Sahara desert. By the 2 May he had made suvvesfully completed it and made it to Morocco, to a location close to Marrakesh.  

Chester has continued on from north Africa and by 1 May was in southern Spain, just north of the Sierra Nevada Mountains. 

Chris has returned to the area around the Norfolk/Suffolk border where he was first tagged in spring 2011 and has spent each subsequent summer. 

Since leaving our shores in 2011, Chris has flown over, or visited, twenty-eight different countries, crossed the Sahara Desert eight times and reached speeds of up to 60mph. 

Dr Chris Hewson, lead scientist on the project at the BTO, said, “Chris was one-year old when we fitted the satellite-tag, which makes him five-years old now, and quite an age for a Cuckoo; the oldest we have on record is almost seven. The tag was also given a life of two-to-three years, so that is getting quite old too. We had everything crossed for Chris to make it back again this year and give us another complete migration route, and he hasn’t let us down.”

David is back at his breeding site near Tregaron in Wales, completing his third complete migration with his satellite tag since 2012. He arived on 28 April, at least two weeks earlier than in 2014 and a week earlier than in 2013. 

David has moved a little closer to the UK and is now in northern France, poised to make his return! 

Chris is back in the UK once again! From western Spain he has covered 1080km (670 miles), travelling over France and the English Channel to reach a location in the Isle of Wight by the 26 April.  He still has a little way further to go yet to reach his breeding grounds which are to the north-east, in Norfolk. This is the fourth return trip of his that we have been able to follow since he was tagged in 2011.  

By the morning of the 26 April Derek had returned to Norfolk and was back in the UK. From his postition in Spain he had travelled 1620km (1000 miles), crossing over France during the 24 April, to return his breeding grounds as the fifth of our tagged Cuckoos back to the UK.