New updates received at around 19:00 yesterday evening (Saturday 17 July) showed that Calypso had flown 1,867 km (1,160 miles) south and had reached the western edge of the Air mountains in Niger. The highest peak of this range is Mont Idoukal-n-Taghès at 2022 m / 6633 ft. By 03:30 this morning (Sunday 18 July) Calypso had flown a further 325 km (202 miles) south and was looking set to join Cuckoo Ellis in Nigeria. Hopefully when we next hear from him he will have successfully completed his desert crossing.
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.
Calypso tackles the Sahara
18 Jul 2021
Calypso makes his move to Africa
16 Jul 2021
Having been hanging out near Istres since 28 June, Calypso has finally made another move. New updates that arrived at around 5pm yesterday showed that he had crossed the Mediterranean, flying 785 km (487 miles) from France to northern Tunisia. By 10 pm last night he was 95 km (60 miles) further south, on farmland near the town of Al Arusah, 80Km (50 miles) south west of Tunis.
Calypso blazes south
28 Jun 2021
Over the last few days Calypso has flown 745 km (464 miles) from his last location near Caen in Normandy to the south of France. He made the journey in two stages, first flying 565 km (351 miles) to stop-over briefly close to the village of Grandrieu in the Lozère department in southern France. The next day (Sunday 27th June) he was on the move again, flying a further 181 km (113 miles) south east to his current location in the outskirts of the city of Istres. Will he cross to northern Africa from here or turn west over Spain? Stay tuned for the next update to find out!
Calypso crosses the Channel
25 Jun 2021
Calypso has safely crossed the English Channel and by 04:13 yesterday morning he had arrived in Normandy. In the hours since has been exploring the area between the villages of Mouen and La Valette, just west of Caen.
Introducing Calypso
17 Jun 2021
Calypso was caught and tagged at the fantastic Wildgoose Rural Training and Nature Reserve where our tagging team received a very warm welcome. He is currently still at his tagging site.
Meet the 2021 Cuckoos
17 Jun 2021
After being unable to tag any Cuckoos in 2020 due to COVID-19 restrictions, we are delighted to be able to introduce eleven new Cuckoos this year!
The tagging teams faced some very early starts as usual to tag the Cuckoos, but they were rewarded with birds who were interested enough in the female lure to be caught, weighed and tagged (with the exception of a location near Loch Katrine where there were a number of female Cuckoos around, making our lure less convincing!).
Some of these newly-tagged birds have already begun their migration south, with one in France, one in the Netherlands and one of the Scottish birds is already down in Essex.
Keep an eye on the individual birds' blogs for updates on their progress.
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