From Sicily, Mungo continued southwards, across the Mediterranean Sea to Libya where we received several unconfirmed locations. However, a confirmed signal, received yesterday afternoon, revealed that he had finished his desert crossing and is now north of Lake Chad. He has is only around 125km (77miles) north-west of where Chris is located.

Lake Chad is an important area for migrants and, it seems, our Cuckoos Mungo and Chris are no exception. It is a large inland freshwater lake that is under severe threat. It has shrunk by as much as 90% since the 1960s due to climate change and water extraction.

 A series of poor locations received on Sunday morning (22 July) indicate that Mungo has set off from northern Italy and is now in Sicily. We eagerly await his tag’s next ‘on’ period to confirm his location.

At just before 2100hrs GMT last night (19 July), Mungo had began moving away from his last transmission area in the Alpine pass to east of Mont Blanc. A series of locations tracked his progress as he migrated through the night over the north-western Italian regions of Piedmont and Liguria before stopping on the coast of Tuscany sometime before 0500 hrs GMT. Despite the lure of this location, we don’t expect Mungo to stay here long – he will probably press on and start his desert crossing in the next few days as we suspect he completed his preparations during the four weeks he spent in the Alps. Mungo progressed by 435km (270 miles) in a south-easterly direction during the night.

With the exception of Roy, there has been little recent movement by the Cuckoos tagged in Scotland - Wallace remains in Ayrshire; BB remains in north-eastern Italy; Mungo remains in Switzerland close to Mont Blanc; Chance remains just south of Berlin.