Updates from our Cuckoos

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.

With the summer nearing its end for our Cuckoos, in the past five years several of our tagged Cuckoos have left the UK during early June, it is good to see that David is still moving around the area close to Tregaron and his tagging site. Around mid-morning on 14 June he was 3.25km (2 miles) northwest of Garthynty.

David is back at Tregaron! A series if signals received during the early morning of 3 May show that David is back at his tagging site, completing four whole migration cycles since he was fitted with his tag and equalling the amazing feat of Chris the Cuckoo, whilst providing a huge amount of information on Welsh Cuckoos.The signals were received too early for the map to update but this will happen on 4 May.

A single location received from David's tag around breakfast time on 26 April showed that he was in northern Spain. He is in an area of farmland on the southern edge of the Cantabrian Mountains, 88km (54 miles) from the Biscay coast. Go David!

It looks like David left Guinea on 12 April and headed north across the western edge of the Sahara. Several poor quality locations received on 14 April placed him in northern Mauritania, pretty much in the middle of his Saharan crossing. During the early morning of 17 April, we received confirmation via a good quality location, that he had successfully crossed the desert, and the western Mediterranean, and was in the Sierra Morena Mountains in southern Spain.

On the face of it, it looks like David is still in Nigeria, but a series of poor locations received between 1 and 3 April show that he is most likely in Sierra Leone, 2,282km (1,418 miles) west of his location shown on the map. We will have to wait for a good quality location to confirm this but we think it will show him in northern Sierra Leone, close to the border with Guinea. This will put him further west than any of our other tagged Cuckoos.