Updates from our Cuckoos

Transmissions were received from both our Welsh Cuckoos' tags on the evening of the 16 January but there have been no significant movements from David and Lloyd to report.  

Chance, Lloyd, David and Chris all remain in their previous positions according to locations received in the last two days.  

So far in 2013, we have heard from four of the five remaining Cuckoos. We received tag transmissions from Chris and Chance today and from Lloyd and David yesterday showing there had been no substantial movements to report.

However, we haven’t heard from BB since the 30 December - at this stage this is nothing to worry about, though, as at this time last year we regularly went longer than this without hearing from the Cuckoos. A combination of poor charging conditions and a gradual decline in battery charge mean that they are transmitting less often, whilst as they are within the forest interference from trees reduces the chances of transmissions being picked up by satellites. Once they move on, or the weather at their current locations improves, we should start to receive positions more regularly again. 

We received several signals from Lloyd's tag in the early hours of this morning. He is still in the same area but appears to be moving around. 

There have been no further eastwards movements from Lloyd. The last transmission received on 26 December shows that he has remained in the area of gallery forest he moved to on 7 December. Although both he and David, the other remaining Welsh Cuckoo, are both in the Democratic Republic of Congo, over 620km (385 miles) separates their current positions.

Since 4 December, Lloyd has continued to creep east. New locations show that he moved on early yesterday (6 December) evening, eventually settling at the edge of an area of gallery forest located with a matrix of savannah 42km (26 miles) ENE of his previous location. From the satellite map, the landscape looks very similar to the Téké Plateau in Congo, which has hosted most of the Cuckoos tagged in England and Scotland in mid-winter. After two weeks of punctuated movement since he left CAR, will Lloyd stay where he is or continue edging east? His latest movement adds Uganda to the list of countries (already including Tanzania, Rwanda and Burundi) to which Lloyd is closer to than to any location occupied by another of our tagged Cuckoos. 

Now that BB has moved south, the five Cuckoos that we are still tracking all appear to be at, or close to, their final wintering locations. Although we can’t draw firm conclusions from such small numbers, the Scottish-tagged Cuckoos are wintering in the same area as the Cuckoos tagged in England (bar Chris) did last winter. The two Welsh Cuckoos are further to the east. This is really interesting but whether it reflects general differences in the wintering areas used by the different breeding populations will need to be confirmed by the results of further tracking work in the coming years.

Further locations received yesterday morning confirmed that Lloyd continued onwards and was about 100km further south than his position on 24 November. He is now just a few km south of the town of Lodja. This new movement means that Lloyd is the furthest south of the tagged Cuckoos.