Updates from our Cuckoos

Tennyson has recently flown 200 km (129 miles) south-east to his current location, hopping over the border and into the Democratic Republic of Congo. He is close to the Ubangi river and the Ngiri nature reserve, an area of swamp forest.

Valentine only stayed in Cameroon for a few days before pressing on to his current location in northern Angola. Valentine is now 228 Km (142 miles) north-east of the capital Luanda and just 167 km (104 miles) separates him from Suffolk Cuckoo PJ.

Since our last update PJ has flown further south as expected and is now in northern Angola, where he wintered in 2016, 2017 & 2018. He is just north-east of the capital Luanda and we expect him to remain here for a month or so, before beginning the first stage of his migration north again. 

Valentine left Burkina Faso on 16th November, flying 495 km (307 miles) south-east over the border into Ghana where he stayed for a week. On 23rd November he departed Ghana and flew 836 km (520 miles) east to Nigeria where he stopped for around a week near Benin City in southern Nigeria. The latest update shows that by 5:45 pm on Saturday evening (November 30) Valentine had flown a further 416 km (258 miles) south east to his current location in western Cameroon. 

Carlton II didn't stay long in Equatorial Guinea before covering the last 280 km (174 miles) and reaching his new location in central Gabon. He is now 17 km (10 miles) south of the small town of Booue and just south of the Equator. He is in exactly the same area as he spent the 2018/19 winter, arriving on November 7 and departing on February 3. 

True to last year's timings, Carlton II has moved onwards dring the first week of November. This year he has flown slightly further south, bypassing Cameroon, and settling on nearby Equatorial Guinea to feed up before he, presumably, presses on into Gabon andthe dense forest of the Congo Basin as last year. His most recent trip covered over 1035km (645 miles) and has taken him close to the town of Anisoc.

Senan had been in Burkina Faso since 21 August but signals on the 5 November show he was ready for change of scenery. He left the location he has spent the last 13 weeks in and travelled 350km (220 miles) south-east to Benin. He is currently on the southern edge of the Wari Maro Forest Reserve. 

After a week in Cameroon, PJ has flown 687 km (427 miles) south to his current location in western Republic of the Congo. He is on the southern edge of the 13,500 Km2 Odzala National Park, one of Africa's oldest national parks, in the heart of the Congo Basin. We don't expect PJ to stay here for more than a week or two before progressing on to his wintering grounds in northern Angola. 

Over the last few days PJ has left Nigeria and flown 1,288 km (800 miles) south east into Cameroon. He stopped briefly en-route just south of the Nigerian capital Abuja, before pressing on across the border into Cameroon. He is now in the Adamawa region of Cameroon and just north of the large Mbam Djerem National Park. He stopped in exactly the same area between 3 October and 20 November 2018 and visited close by on his spring migration earlier this year. We expect him to visit Congo next on his way to Angola where he usually over winters. 

Tennyson has quietly continued onwards, flying over the border into the Republic of Congo. He is currently in the Nouabale Ndoki National Park, an area of over 4,000 square kilometers of lowland rainforest. He has chosen a good spot as this is an intact forest ecosystem where wildlife who reside here have had little or no contact with people.