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Cuckoo tracking – All 5 cuckoos now in Congo Rainforest

25/11/2011 11:15:11 birds/birds_2011_june/bto_cuckoo

BTO tracking 5 cuckoos from East Anglia
November 2011. After spending almost three months in Nigeria, Clement has now joined the other four cuckoos in the Congo Rainforest. This is now the closest all five Cuckoos have been to each other since leaving East Anglia this summer.

All five birds are in Africa. The first bird left the UK on the 3rd June and the last on the night of the 22/23 July. They have all successfully completed the crossing of the Sahara and are in the savannah zones. Clement was the first to leave the UK but is now the most northerly, remaining in Nigeria, whilst the other four have travelled south to the Central African Republic and Congo.

Scottish cuckoos: BTO know that Scottish cuckoos are not in decline, like English ones, so in 2012 they will track some cuckoos from Scotland to see how, if at all, their migration route varies from English cuckoos.

Crossing the desert: The Saharan crossing is one of the major sources of mortality for many migrants and during his crossing Chris, the Radio 4 Saving Species Cuckoo, was seen crossing the Sahara on the 23rd July. He was in Chad on a lava field around the rim of the volcano Tarso Voon. Happily, when he was next recorded on 25 July he had completed the desert crossing and was in southern Chad.

Interesting observation: although caught within 70km of each other, the four Cuckoos in sub-Saharan Africa have been separated by up to 3,600km!

How the tags works: The tags transmit for 10 hours and then go into 'sleep' mode for 48 hours to allow the solar panel to recharge the battery. The map on the BTO page is updated each day at 1000 GMT (1100 BST). Click here to see the latest map on the BTO website.

If you would like to support this ground-breaking tracking project, please sponsor a cuckoo.

A map showing the routs the cuckoos took to Africa

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