Filter by Cuckoo

Updates from our Cuckoos

Read the latest updates from our Cuckoos on their epic migration between the UK and tropical Africa, or track their movements in real-time on our Cuckoo migration map.

  • If you enjoy these updates, please consider sponsoring a Cuckoo. Sponsors receive special updates about their chosen Cuckoo in the Cuckoo e-newsletter. 

Nick returns to the Cavenham Heath area

12 Jun 2013

Having moved to the area immediately north and west of Reach in Cambridgeshire on 4 June, seemingly searching for his namesake Prof Nick Davies who has spent many years researching the behavioural ecology of cuckoos at Wicken Fen 3km (2 miles) to the north, by this morning (12 June) Nick had moved back 18km (11 miles) east to an area of farmland 5km (3 miles) SSW of Cavenham Heath. 

Catching Nick

11 Jun 2013
At 03.15 on the 31 May, Chris Hewson and a small band of helpers gathered in the gloom of a cold and misty morning at Natural England’s Cavenham Heath, Suffolk, with the aim of catching and fitting a satellite tag to one of the last cuckoos to join the class of 2013. The whole process was projected to take around two hours and the intrepid Cuckoo catchers would be back home in plenty of time for breakfast.
 
Five hours later in misty and windy conditions and with not a single one of the five or six cuckoos responding to their lures having been caught, catching operations were moved to a less misty patch of the heath and within twenty-minutes Nick the Cuckoo was caught – he wasn’t known as Nick at the time but this was chosen for him in honour of Professor Nick Davies (Department of Zoology, Cambridge University), an expert in the behavioural ecology of cuckoos.
 
After arriving on the heath at 03.15 the Cuckoo team left it at 09.15, happy in the knowledge that another Cuckoo would provide scientists at the BTO with more vital information.
 
On the 4 June, Nick left Cavenham Heath and moved to an area of farmland with patches of woodland just north of Newmarket and around 20km (13 miles) west of his previous location.  
 
 

Pages

Related content