Updates from our Cuckoos

Jasper was the first Cuckoo tagged in 2023.

Since being tagged on 12 May, he has remained near his tagging location in the King’s Forest, a few miles south-west of our headquarters in Thetford. 

Trent was caught close to the village of Ryall in south Worcestershire, at a time when the tagging team had all but given up hope of catching anything that day.

With rain threatening on the evening of 19 May, they spotted a Cuckoo dropping down to the ground near their mist nets as it attempted to avoid a Meadow Pipit, which was mobbing it.

As the team moved in for a closer look, the Cuckoo reappeared and flew straight into their net.

Since being tagged Trent has remained in the same area. 

Cuach is the Irish name for Cuckoo, and Carran is the name of a mountain in the Burren National Park where this bird was tagged.

On examining him, the tagging team were able to establish that Carran is a juvenile male, hatched last year. All of our other tagged birds this year are full adults.

Since being tagged, Carran has remained at his tagging location.  

Cuach is Irish for Cuckoo, and Cores is a mountain in Killarney National Park where this bird was tagged. He was one of several handsome male Cuckoos caught by the tagging team on the morning of 17 May.

On 3 June Cores had moved east to a new position, just south of Ballincollig, but he soon progressed to the coast before moving north to Slievenamon Bog.

He has since moved west, and at lunchtime on 6 June he was in or over Garryowen, a suburb of Limerick. 

Cuckoo KP was tagged at Incheens in Killarney National Park, one of several male Cuckoos caught by our team on the morning of 17 May. He is one of four Cuckoos tagged in Ireland this year.

Since being tagged, KP has remained in the same area. 

Cuach is the Irish name for Cuckoo, and Torc is the name of one of the mountains in Killarney National Park where he was tagged.

Torc was one of three handsome male Cuckoos caught by the tagging team on the morning of 17 May. 

Over the weekend Torc has flown 136 km (84 miles) north-east and is now close to the town of Clonmel in County Tipperary. 

In early May we were surprised to receive a photograph of a satellite-tagged Cuckoo on the Knepp Estate in Sussex. This was unexpected, because although we have previously tagged birds at Knepp, we had lost contact with them all, either because they had died or the tag had failed.

So it was with great excitement that the team approached their nets early on the morning of 18 May after watching a tagged Cuckoo fly towards them. They had indeed caught the tagged bird and they soon discovered that this was Bluey, originally tagged in May 2022 at Knepp.

We tracked Bluey south across the Sahara to the border region between Mali and Senegal but lost contact with him in late July 2022. The diagnostic data from his tag did not suggest any sort of tag malfunction so we concluded that he had perished.

It was a joy to hear that he was alive and well back in Sussex. He appeared to be in good health, so the team removed his original tag and fitted him with a new tag; hopefully, this one will last longer. The map on this page will show his movements since having his new tag fitted in May 2023. We are hoping that we’ll be able to find out why his original tag failed.

Since being tagged, Bluey has remained on the Knepp Estate. 

Sayaan was tagged at the amazing Knepp Estate in Sussex, and has remained in the same area since. 

Cuckoo George was tagged on Loddon Common in the Norfolk Broads, and has remained in this area since he was tagged on 17 May 2023. 

When we last reported on Ellis' movements he had just moved north in Spain to the outskirts of the city of Caceres in Extremadura, west central Spain. It has now been more than two weeks since he arrived there and data received from his tag earlier this week show lower than expected temperature readings. Taken together this information strongly suggests that Ellis has perished in Spain. You may have seen that he had a rather protracted journey through Africa and we fear that the drought in Spain may have made his recovery from his desert crossing difficult. It has been nearly two years since we tagged Ellis and he has given us some fantastic data as he migrated between Scotland and the Congo. Thank you and farewell Ellis.