After spending a month at her tagging location in Brechfa Forest, Idemili followed her male colleagues and moved eastwards to Surrey. She was in Wales on the evening of the 9th July and we next heard from her in Surrey on the morning of the 11 July.

We thought all was well but received a phone call today (13 July) from the Wildlife Aid Foundation in Leatherhead to say she had been picked up yesterday (12 July) in a garden in Tolworth, Surrey. She was underweight and had some wounds to her wing and some feathers were missing from her head indicating she had been attacked by another bird.

She survived the night and is taking mealworms, crickets and water so there is hope that she will recover. Whilst the bird hospital have confirmed that she shows no evidence of damage from the tag, Dr Chris Hewson, lead scientist on the project at the BTO, will visit Idemili tomorrow (14 July) to remove her tag while she recuperates, and to assess her physical condition. She is in excellent hands at the hospital and we will be keeping a close eye on her as she recovers.

To find out more about the Wildlife Aid Foundation, or to support their work, take a look at their website here.

We are really excited to be following a female British Cuckoo for the first time. It might seem strange that we have only tagged one female Cuckoo but this has been more by circumstance than design. The aim of BTO scientists was always to catch and fit satellite tags on five female birds this year, with a view to determining whether or not the migration of female birds differs from that of male cuckoos. However, females have proved surprisingly difficult to catch this spring, a combination of the seemingly late arrival in some areas (when the Scottish males were being tagged not a single female was heard) and the unusually wet and windy weather didn't help with the task.

Cuckoo 115590 is the first female cuckoo to have a satellite tag fitted. She joins five male birds that have been tagged in Wales. She is an adult of at least two years  of age and was caught in the Brechfa Forest, Carmarthanshire, Wales, on 10 June 2012.