Updates from our Cuckoos

Sayaan has followed the lead of our other Knepp Cuckoo Bluey and moved approximately 17 km (10 miles) south. After a few days close to Worthing Crematorium, Sayaan appears to have moved east towards the Devil’s Dyke area of the South Downs, close to Brighton. 

Cuach Torc is in hot pursuit of Cuach Cores! Over the last few days Torc has flown over 500 miles from his last location near Clonmel in County Tipperary to his current location, which is close to the village of Herbault in the French department of Loir-et-Cher.

Torc is now approximately 100 km (62 miles) north-east of Cores. 

Cuach Cores has continued his journey south through France – by around 9 p.m. last night he had crossed the Loire and was in the south-eastern corner of the Maine-et-Loire department of Western France. His tag shows him in woodland close to the Canal de la Dive, just south of the commune of Bellevigne-les-Châteaux. 

Our Cuckoo tracking work has shown us that our male Cuckoos set off on their migrations back to Africa sooner than we had previously thought, often during the first few days of June. We are excited to report that Cuach Cores has become the first of our tagged birds to set off this year.

Updates received last night showed that he had crossed the Irish Sea, spending some time yesterday evening in Dylan Thomas country, close to Laugharne and Llansteffan in South West Wales. Further updates received this morning suggest that he didn’t hang about here but pressed on south towards northern France. The most recent update showed him nearing the Brittany coastline close to Saint Malo and Mont Saint-Michel.

Hopefully we’ll receive further updates very soon confirming that he has reached dry land in France.

We are very sad to report that we have heard the last from Cuckoo JAC.

JAC, named in loving memory of Professor Jenny Clack, was tagged at World’s End near Llangollen on 1 June 2021. Since then we have had the privilege of tracking him over two full migration cycles from Wales to Africa and back.

His route south across the Sahara took him via Algeria and Mali to the Sahelian areas of Burkina Faso or Niger. He then spent some time in northern Nigeria before heading on to the Congo. On his return migration north, he visited West Africa where he stopped in Ivory Coast in 2022 and Guinea in 2023, arriving back in Llangollen around the end of April each year. 

The diagnostic data received from his tag shows the recorded temperature dropping and this, along with the fact that he appears to have been stationary for quite a while, suggests that he has perished (rather than there being a tag failure).

He has made a very valuable contribution to our growing knowledge of Cuckoo ecology and we will miss reporting on his movements.  

Over the last couple of days, Bluey has left Knepp and flown approximately 15 km (9 miles) south-east towards Shoreham-by-Sea in West Sussex. After popping briefly into Buckingham Park, he has been exploring the area around the village of Upper Bleeding. It’ll be interesting to see whether this is the start of his migration or if he will head back towards Knepp. 

Cuckoo Michael was tagged on Loddon Common in the Norfolk Broads, and after retrieving him from the nets, the team made the exciting discovery that he was already fitted with a BTO ring. We soon discovered that he had been ringed in May 2019 at Wicken Fen in Cambridgeshire. We were touched to discover that the ringer was the late Michael Holdsworth, a member of the Wicken Fen Ringing Group and a wonderfully supportive BTO member who sadly passed away unexpectedly in 2021.

An anonymous donor has kindly agreed for us to name this bird Michael in his memory. Having been instrumental in our Spotted Flycatcher tracking work, Michael would have been thrilled to know that the Cuckoo he had ringed had been recaught and that we would be tracking his movements from now on. Since being tagged, Michael has remained at his breeding grounds on Loddon Common. 

Jasper was the first Cuckoo tagged in 2023.

Since being tagged on 12 May, he has remained near his tagging location in the King’s Forest, a few miles south-west of our headquarters in Thetford. 

Trent was caught close to the village of Ryall in south Worcestershire, at a time when the tagging team had all but given up hope of catching anything that day.

With rain threatening on the evening of 19 May, they spotted a Cuckoo dropping down to the ground near their mist nets as it attempted to avoid a Meadow Pipit, which was mobbing it.

As the team moved in for a closer look, the Cuckoo reappeared and flew straight into their net.

Since being tagged Trent has remained in the same area. 

Cuach is the Irish name for Cuckoo, and Carran is the name of a mountain in the Burren National Park where this bird was tagged.

On examining him, the tagging team were able to establish that Carran is a juvenile male, hatched last year. All of our other tagged birds this year are full adults.

Since being tagged, Carran has remained at his tagging location.