Updates from our Cuckoos

Sussex Cuckoos Knepp and Raymond have already made it back to the Knepp Estate where they were tagged last year. Arriving fashionably late to the party, we hope, will be the third Sussex Cuckoo, Raymond. Also tagged on the Knepp Estate, Raymond spent the winter in Congo, approximately 750 Km (466 miles) north of Lambert and Knepp. Since crossing the Sahara Raymond has been making steady progress north. Over the last few days he has flown 555 Km (345 miles) north east from La Higuera in the province of Avila, Castile & Leon in Spain and is now near Lencouacq in Nouvelle-Aquitaine in south-western France. He now has just 766 Km (476 miles) of his 14,000 Km (8,700 miles) journey to go until he is also back at Knepp.

Raymond has been making steady progress north since crossing the Sahara. In the last few days he crossed into Spain, stopping briefly near Puebla de Don Rodrigo, a municipality in Ciudad Real, Castile-La Mancha. He has since flown a further 130 Km (80 miles) north to his current location 117 Km (73 miles) west of Madrid, near La Higuera in the province of Avila, Castile & Leon in Spain. Raymond has another 1,250 Km (777 miles) to fly before he reaches the Knepp Estate where he was tagged. 

He's had us holding our breath waiting to see if he was going to make his move north and finally Sussex Cuckoo Raymond has crossed the Sahara. At 19:23 on April 29, Raymond was still south of the Sahara, in west central Ivory Coast. By 16:27 yesterday (May 1) he was in the middle of his desert crossing and had reached northern Mauritania. By 3:03 this morning (May 2) he was over the Middle Atlas mountain range in Morocco and by 08:35 he had reached his destination, 30 Km (19 miles) from the north coast of Morocco, near the commune of Iferni. This means that over the last 57 hours, Raymond has covered 3,031 Km (1,883 miles) at an average speed of 33 mph, crossing some of the most inhospitable places on earth. He now has "just" another 1,811 Km (1,125 miles) to go before he arrives back at his breeding grounds on the Knepp Estate. 

Raymond is still in Nigeria but has moved west towards the border with Benin. This movement has seen him fly 446km (277 miles). He is on the north bank of the Ogun River and close to the town of Aba Tuntun. The area he is in is a mix of open forest and cultivated land.

Raymond has flown 181 Km (112 miles) north west towards central Nigeria. He is now 1,230 Km (765 miles) east of the third Knepp Cuckoo, Knepp who is way out west in Ivory Coast.

An update received from Raymond's tag at 02:55 yesterday morning suggests that he has departed Cameroon and has flown 515 Km (320 miles) west and crossed the border into Nigeria. We will have to await another update to learn whether Raymond has stayed in Nigeria or was en-route to another destination further west.

Over the weekend, Raymond moved west, crossing the border into Cameroon. He is currently in gallery forest to the west of the Lom River and the town of Maraba, and 382km (237 miles) from his stopover site in CAR.