Over the last few days Valentine has flown 322 km (200 miles) south west into south-western Burkina Faso. He is now in the Hauts-Bassins region, 55 km (34 miles) north-east of the region capital, Bobo Dioulasso.
Updates from our Cuckoos
Read the latest updates from our Cuckoos on their epic migration between the UK and tropical Africa, or track their movements in real-time on our Cuckoo migration map.
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Valentine moves to south-west Burkina Faso
29 Jul 2019
Senan heading for Africa?
29 Jul 2019
Some low quality locations transmitted by Senan's tag suggest that during the evening of 27th and early morning of 28th he was crossing the Mediterranean with the last location pointing to his destination being north-east Morocco or north-west Algeria. We will hopefully receive some better quality locations soon which will clarify where he has made landfall.
Raymond in southern Spain
29 Jul 2019
Raymond has flown 370 km (230 miles) south and is now just north of Huescar in Granada, Spain.
Carlton II arrives in Andalusia
29 Jul 2019
Since our last update Carlton II has flown 458 km (285 miles) south to Andalusia in southern Spain, where he is currently approximately 55 km (34 miles) north of Seville.
Larry is in Libya
29 Jul 2019
Over the last few days Larry has departed Italy, crossed the Mediterranean and arrived in Libya. This is the fifth southern migration we have tracked Larry over and in all previous years he has passed through Libya, enroute to Chad where he usually makes his post-desert stop-off. If Larry successfully navigates the desert this time he will overtake Chris as our longest-serving Cuckoo.
PJ is crossing the desert!
29 Jul 2019
At 10:54 on Wednesday 24 July PJ was still in northern Spain but by 11:18 on Sunday 29 July he had flown 1,748 km (1,086 miles) south east and was in or over the desert in central Algeria. He has since flown a further 626 km (389 miles) south and by 04:30 this morning (29 July) he was at the western edge of the Tassili Oua-N-Ahaggar Desert in the Tamanrasset region of southern Algeria. He needs to travel another 1000 km (621 miles) or so in order to complete his desert crossing, hopefully when we next hear from him he'll be safely on the other side. In previous years PJ has stopped in Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger after crossing the Sahara.
Tennyson crosses into Cameroon
26 Jul 2019
Tennyson clocked in at 03:06 this morning (Friday July 26) with an update showing he has flown 270 km (168 miles) south east from his last location in Nigeria over the border into Cameroon. He is now in the North Province of Cameroon, and is just north of Faro National Park.
Thomas on his way to Africa?
25 Jul 2019
We were getting a bit worried about Thomas after a period of almost two weeks without an update from his tag. When we last heard from him he was near Ales in souther France. Finally on Monday 22 July we received a couple of poor quality locations showing that he had flown 840 km (521 miles) south west and was just south of Daimiel in Ciudad Real, Castile-La Mancha, Spain. He didn't hang around though and by 19:24 on the evening of July 24 he had flown another 297 km (185 miles) south west and was on the Costa del Sol, between Marbella and Fuengirola, approximately 4.5 km (2.8 miles) inland. It looks like he may have just been passing through as the last signal we received last night at 20:30 showed him to be 12 km (7.8 miles) due south of Marbella, out over the Mediterranean. This was a poor quality signal so we'll have to await the next update to find out if Thomas has made his move to Africa.
Tennyson is the first to cross the desert!
22 Jul 2019
In our last update we reported that Thetford Cuckoo Tennyson had made it as far as Northern Niger, having flown 2,496 km (1,550 miles) from his previous stop-over site in northern Spain. A transmission received from Tennyson's tag at 07:44 on Friday July 19 confirmed that he had become the first of our tagged Cuckoo to successfully cross the Sahara in 2019. He passed east of the Air Mountains in Niger and landed in northern Nigeria. After stopping first close to Kano, the state capital of Kano State in northern Nigeria, he has since flown 256 km (159 miles) south east and is in north-eastern Nigeria, on the border between the states of Bauchi and Taraba. 1,432 km (890 miles) now separates Tennyson from Valentine, the other Cuckoo that has crossed the desert. Both of these Cuckoos were tagged in Thetford Forest this year.
Valentine has crossed the desert
22 Jul 2019
Since our last update Valentine has become the second of our tagged Cuckoos to successfully cross the Sahara. From his location in Morocco he has flown south east into Algeria and then due south over Mali to Burkina Faso. He is currently in the Rollo Department, a commune of Bam Province in north-western Burkina Faso. He is 125 km (78 miles) north of the capital Ouagadougou.
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