Updates from our Cuckoos

A low accuracy location received this morning (30 June) suggest that Kasper has remained in the same area 50km (30 miles) west of Bologna.

By Saturday (25 June) morning Kasper had moved a further 80km (50 miles) SSW – taking him to some foothills with remnant patches of woodland 50km (30 miles) west of Bologna. This takes him into a landscape very similar to those in which previous recoveries of BTO-ringed Cuckoos in autumn have come from – presumably there is very good staging habitat here that allows cuckoos to feed up well before continuing their migrations.

New positions for Kasper received this morning (23 June) showed he had moved a further 565km (353 miles) south-east since Monday morning! He is now in northern Italy between Parma and Venice a little to the east of the parts of Piedmont and Lombardy in which several BTO-ringed Cuckoos have been found.

He has now moved 1100km due south-east from the location at which he was tagged. The two places he stopped en route lie directly on this trajectory and he appears to have crossed the Alps in eastern Switzerland.

Kasper has left the Antwerp area and by the morning of Monday (20 June) he was a further 300km (190 miles) south-east, on the border of France and Germany 45km (27 miles) south-east of Luxembourg. In the last ten days since leaving the location at which he was tagged he has moved 540km (336 miles) south-east.

As of 1600hrs on Friday afternoon, we have received no new locations for Kasper. His tag should start to transmit anytime now - at 1000hrs on Saturday any new locations from this transmission period will appear on the maps.

Two fairly accurate locations received for Kapser in the afternoon of 15 June suggest that he remains in the same vicinity of Antwerp docks.

Although we initially wondered whether Kasper might have made part of his journey to Antwerp docks via a boat, our colleague Lyndon Kearsley who lives close by, says he thinks this is unlikely. The area is apparently a ‘migrant trap’ that funnels migrants that have arrived on the coast down towards the docks. Many of the areas between the industrial installations are managed for conservation and so make very good habitat for birds. Apparently the area is good for Cuckoos throughout the breeding season - perhaps Kasper has been lured by these? The particular area that Kasper is in is out of bounds to the public so Lyndon is waiting for further news on his whereabouts in the hope that he might be able to track him down in the field.

Having remained in the same area since he was tagged, Kasper surprised us all by turning up on the morning of Monday 13 June 240km (150 miles) to the south-east in an area of wooded scrub in the middle of an oil storage facility in Antwerp docks! We wonder whether he might have made part of this journey on board an Antwerp bound oil tanker? Kasper is the third Cuckoo to move away from his tagging location and the first to do so in a directly south-easterly direction.

Kasper remains in the Hickling Broad and Horsey area.

Kasper remains in the same general area although the last location received (0940 hrs 8 June) was a little to the south-east, in the area that Martin has been hanging out in.

Kasper has been the least mobile of the Cuckoos so far and has remained in the same area since his capture. He is spending most of his time in the Hickling Broad and Horsey areas, where positions received on the morning of Monday 6th June placed him.