Updates from our Cuckoos

We were delighted to receive further updates from Daniel's tag last night showing that he has flown 924 km (574 miles) north-north west from his last location on Sicily. At around 10pm last night he was close to the fishing village of Camogli on the Portofino peninsula approximately 10 miles east of Genoa. He is now slightly further north than Worcestershire Cuckoo Calypso. Might he beat Calypso, Victor II and JAC back to the UK? 

As we had not heard from Cuckoo Daniel since mid March when he was in Cameroon, and our other Cuckoos were making good progress towards the UK we were expecting to have to announce that we had lost him. However, we received some signals from Daniel's tag at 04:46 this morning showing that he is in Sicily, 3,780 km (2,347 miles) from his last know location! He is in the south eastern corner of the island, 18km east of the city of Gela. Hopefully this marks the return of regular updates from Daniel's tag.

We received some weak signals from Daniel's tag on Tuesday morning suggesting that he has flown 410 km (254 miles) south from Central African Republic into the south eastern corner of Cameroon. He is now at the southern edge of Boumba Bek National Park.  

We were beginning to think that we might have heard the last from Daniel as he has remained a long way north of the rest of the pack. He has remained in Chad since arriving there on 1st September. However, a couple of new signals received over the last few days show him 743 km (462 miles) south of his last location in Chad. This movement means that Daniel is now in western Central African Republic. Will he push further south and join the others in the Congo basin? Hopefully we'll find out over the next week or two. 

Daniel left south eastern Mali on Friday and by Sunday evening he was in southern Niger. He didn't linger there long and by the early hours of this morning (1 September) he had flown on, clipping the north eastern corner of Nigeria and passing Lake Chad before arriving in Chad. He is now on the shores of Lake Fitri, approximately 260 Km (161 miles) east of the capital N'Djamena.   

The latest updates received from Daniel's tag show him in the south eastern corner of Mali. He was heading south towards Niger and was a little north of the Ansongo Giraffe Reserve. 

Welsh Cuckoo Daniel arrived in northern Italy on 8 July where he stayed for several weeks. An update received on 10 August showed him on or over Sardinia in the Mediterranean. By the early hours of this morning (Friday 13 August), he had flown 2,190 Km (1,360 miles) south over the Sahara and had just crossed the border from Algeria into Niger. Over the next few hours he continued south west, flying to the west of the Air mountains. By 10:49 this morning he was in the far north western corner of Niger, approximately 400km (250 miles) north of Victor II and PJ. 

Updates received from Daniel's tag over the last 48 hours show that he has flown 420 km (261 miles) from his last position in southern France, over the Alps and into northern Italy. He has taken up temporary residence close to ENI's Sannazzaro de’ Burgond oil and gas refinery, about 45 km southwest of Milan. He is exploring the farmland along the Agogna River. It'll be interesting to see whether Daniel follows Ellis to Rome. 

Cuckoo Daniel is on the move! Over the last few days he has flown 908 km (565 miles) from his last location on the shores of Lake Vyrnwy and by 9pm on Saturday evening was at a new location in the Allier department of central France. He is now close to the town of Chatel-Montagne in the foothills of the Bourbonnais mountains. It will be very interesting to see whether he crosses to Africa via Spain, Italy or neither! 

The first bird caught during this catching session was a female Cuckoo, followed by a Meadow Pipit, these were ringed and let go. After a long wait a male Cuckoo came flying in followed by another Meadow Pipit and swiftly followed by another male Cuckoo – they are like buses! Both Cuckoos were within the weight range required for tagging but we only had one tag left to fit. Since being tagged, Daniel has remained close to his tagging location.