The last few days have been a tense time for us here at the BTO. David has been attempting his desert crossing and for a while it looked like he might be in trouble. He left Montenegro during the evening of 17 August and we heard nothing more from his tag until a poor quality signal on 22 August put him in the Sudan desert, 700km (400 miles) short of a successful crossing, but around mid-afternoon on 24 August a series of good quality signals showed that he has successfully crossed the desert.
In doing so, David has become our most successful tagged Cuckoo. If he makes it back to his wintering location in the Congo rainforest, he will have completed four and-a-half migrations to and from Africa. We all have our fingers crossed that he makes it.
During the early morning of 21 June we received a couple of locations from David's tag that showed he was on his way back to Africa. Despite having to dodge some pretty heavy rainfall, he headed down to the New Forest, Hampshire and probably left the UK via the Isle of Wight. He is currently in northern France just south west of Dreux, and 526km (326 miles) south east of his breeding site atTregaron.
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