The end of the road

Last year, Chance was our first tagged Cuckoo back to the UK, arriving on 26 April.  With Skinner's recent arrival back to the UK, and Chance's 2012 arrival date back to the UK approaching, we have to assume that we will not be able to follow Chance's journey any further. The last signals were received at the beginning of December 2012, and while Tor's sudden reappearence after a similar length of silence gave us hope, there has been no further transmissions from Chance's tag.

 

Given that this time last year he would have been well on his way, with the battery certainly exposed to a good amount of sunlight on the way which may have powered the tag to send a transmission, we think that the battery on the tag probably failed or malfunctioned at some point. In the intervening months. We don't have any clues as to his fate. He may have perished in his wintering ground or on the return journey, or, his tag might have failed and perhaps he will return to the UK shortly? We just don't know.