Updates from our Cuckoos

Locations received from Lloyd’s tag on 31 Aug still place him in west Italy. There has been no further information on Iolo but both Indy and Davids’ tags have transmitted in the last few days. David is still in Chad whilst Indy remains in northern Nigeria.  

Since Iolo was tracked heading south over Libya on 5^th August, we have received only one further unconfirmed location for him. This was four days later and placed him in northern Chad. Not only would we have expected him to have completed his desert crossing by then but his tag had lost charge in the intervening four days. Furthermore, during the transmission period prior to this final location being received, only two messages were received from his tag, neither of which was good enough to result in a location being estimated, despite his tag still having had some charge at that time. This suggests that it was not in a position to transmit clearly to passing satellites – its antenna could have been on the ground for instance. Taken together, these pieces of information suggest that Iolo died during his desert crossing, probably in northern Chad. 

No further transmissions have been received from Iolo in Libya or Lloyd in Italy since the 9 August. Indy also remains in northern Italy and we last heard from him on the 13 August. 

Iolo has become the fifth of our Cuckoos to make it to Africa! From his unconfirmed position near Selvena on the 3 August he has travelled 1,600 km (995 miles) SSE, flying over the Mediterannean Sea to Libya. According to unconfirmed locations he appeared to make landfall mid-morning on Sunday 5 August, east of Tripoli. He then continued on this heading for another 308km (191 miles) during the day and the last location received shows him in the district of Al Jafrah, central Libya. We expect he will continue to press on in a more or less continuous desert crossing from here.

After a period of silence from Iolo, locations received on the morning of 3 August show that he moved around 320km (200 miles) in a southerly direction from his position near Milan. The map shows a location just off the coast but unconfirmed locations show that he made landfall near Talmone, just south of this earlier location, and a further signal indicates he then went inland and north-east around 50km (30 miles). He is close to Selvena, a small hill-town in southern Tuscany, Italy.

Apart from Indy, there is little news for the Cuckoos tagged in Wales – we have not received any recent locations for Iolo as his tag is not charging well (which might suggest he is soon to head south), Lloyd has moved 45km (28 miles) SW of Turin and David is still in Montenegro.

There has been no movement for three of the Cuckoos tagged in Wales over the past week, with David still stopping over in Montenegro and Iolo and Indy doing likewise in the Po watershed. Lloyd, however, has been up to some very odd movements – see his blog for further details.

In common with the Cuckoos tagged in Scotland and England, over the past week there has been little movement form those tagged in Wales. The exception was Indy who, as reported in his blog last week, moved from France into Italy, joining Iolo and becoming the second Cuckoo to be staging in the Po watershed (Reacher passed though the region very briefly but is now staging close to the border between France and Spain). 115597 is still close to Marseille in France.

Iolo was lagging behind David, his fellow Welsh Cuckoo. However he has now completed a huge leg of his migratory journey, arriving in northern Italy. Data received from his tag on the 25 confirmed that he was in the Netherlands, however his next transmission on the 27 showed a location just south of Milan. This is the same area that Chris spent 3 weeks in April 2012 on his return journey.