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Updates from our Cuckoos

Read the latest updates from our Cuckoos on their migration.

Whortle and Patch yet to leave Europe

29 Aug 2013
Signals received from Whortle’s tag yesterday show he is still in Spain. He and Patch are the only remaining tagged birds not to have left mainland Europe yet. Patch currently remains in northern Italy, where he has spent the last two weeks.
 
By the end of August last year, nine birds had reached Africa, four had perished trying to get there and one, Lloyd, was still in northern Italy.  Lloyd only crossed to Africa in early October and we were concerned, given his late departure, about whether he would make the journey successfully. He not only made it successfully but headed in a south-easterly direction and made his crossing over Egypt. This very easterly route will have made the journey even longer than many of the other routes taken by other Cuckoos.  It will be interesting to see how late Whortle and Patch leave their crossings.  
 

Patch in Italy

14 Aug 2013

Patch is making his way south and has travelled from Austria to northern Italy.  On 10 August he was still close to Schwaz, Austria but by the afternoon of 12 August he was 260km (160 miles) further south, near Remedello, in the province of Brescia, and just 28km (17 miles) south-west of Lake Garda. Despite this movement, he is still currently the most northerly Cuckoo of our tagged birds . 

Patch in Austria

05 Aug 2013

By the 2 August, Patch had moved across the border and into Austria. Signals placed him 17km (11 miles) east of Schwaz, a city in Tyrol in the Austrian Alps. He is the only Cuckoo to have stopped in Austria this year and only Chance the Cuckoo is currently further north than Patch's current position. 

Patch on the move

01 Aug 2013

From his last position, Patch has headed south. The latest signals, received yesterday evening, show that he had covered 190km (118 miles) and was north of Mainburg, in the region of Bavaria. We continued to receive transmissions until the early hours of 1 August, which although of poor quality, indicate that he continued south, past Munich and was around the German border with Austria.

Patch leaves the UK

30 Jul 2013
Patch was still close to Doncaster on the morning of 25 July but by midday on 26 July he had crossed over to The Netherlands. Our last tagged Cuckoo had left the UK!  Transmissions show he was in The Hague, the capital city of the province of South Holland. It looks like he didn’t hang around and by the early hours of 27 July he had moved 340km (210 miles) east and was in central Germany, 130km (83 Miles) north of Frankfurt.  This means all three of our Cuckoos tagged in Scotland have travelled via Germany. 
 
Transmissions on the 29 July show that he had left this position and travelled eastwards. He is now just 50km (30 miles) from the border with Czech Republic.  
 

128303 receives a name and heads south

25 Jul 2013

We can now confirm that 128303 has a name and will be called Patch. He has been named on behalf of the Patchwork Challenge and Meopta and Forest Optics, who have sponsored participants in the challenge. It looks like this comes just in time too, while three of our tagged Cuckoos have made it to Africa, signals from Patch’s tag show that he is finally on the move, heading south within England. Transmissions this morning show he is moving around close to the border between south Yorkshire and north Lincolnshire, around 16km (10 miles) south-east of Doncaster. 

128303 in England

12 Jul 2013

In the early morning on the 8 July, 128303 was close to Inveraray, having travelled around 125km (75 miles) south.  Another 200km (125 miles) in 24 hours and he was close to Gretna, flying over the border and in to England just after this. Signals received in the last few days show that he remains in the area between Carlisle and Brampton. Both Roy and Wallace did a similar thing last year, settling close to the border of England and Scotland before moving on, Roy towards the North Moors National Park and then Germany and Wallace back to Scotland and then to France. 

Two Scottish bird remain

04 Jul 2013

These two Scottish birds are still in the area close to where they were tagged and have not yet followed Livingstone south. The Cuckoos from Devon, Wales and Sussex have all left. Who will be the last to leave, Cuckoos from the Norfolk Broads or those from Scotland? 

128303 near Dorusduain

13 Jun 2013

128303 was tagged at the same time as Karma. However, since then he has generally stayed further up the glen, especially around the forestry at Dorusduain. It appears that these two birds were lured from different directions when they were caught! 

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