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BTO tagged Cuckoos; The Journey Begins Again
Topic Started: Feb 7 2013, 07:02 PM (8,048 Views)
Davebutterflyman
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Thanks for those updates Jan.
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celticsparrow-Jan
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Latest News
Chance sits tight - 9 Apr 2013
Chance could still be next to make the desert crossing but at the moment unconfirmed signals suggest he is still in the Ivory Coast.

Chris in France - 9 Apr 2013
Signals received yesterday morning show that Chris has continued quickly onwards from Italy and is already in France, travelling 450km (280 miles) to Charbonnat in southern Burgundy with little rest. This has been a very fast paced journey from Ghana (4,600 km/ 2858 miles in approximately a week) so he must have been nice and fat when he started the journey. If he is still in good condition and the weather is kind, he could be home in the next few days.

Lloyd heads west - 9 Apr 2013
Transmissions from Lloyd's tag yesterday show that he is also moving west. He has covered 185 km (115 miles) in a north-westerly direction from his location in Ghana and is now in Ivory Coast. Will he cross the desert from here or follow BB and David even further west?
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Davebutterflyman
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Thanks for those updates Jan.

There has been a Cuckoo seen in E.Sussex this morning at Seaford but no other news regards tags or anything on the bird.
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celticsparrow-Jan
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It is a bit worrying that out of the 14 cuckoos that were tagged only 3 seem to be transmitting signals now


Latest News
Lloyd is on his way - 23 Apr 2013
Locations received from Lloyd mid-morning of 23 April show him in central Algeria and about two thirds into his desert crossing. The next time we hear from him should be early on Friday, when, fingers crossed he will have completed the Saharan leg of his journey. His map will update tomorrow morning.

David still in central Spain - 23 Apr 2013
David has been in central Spain for six days now. He is currently 120km (75 miles) south-west of BB, and we are due to hear from him in the early morning of 24 April - might he have moved north?

BB still south-west of Madrid - 23 Apr 2013
BB is still south-west of Madrid but could push north any day now. We last heard from him on 22 April so could well get an update early evening on 24 April. He has been in this general area for five days now so could make his move further north anytime soon.

http://www.bto.org/science/migration/tracking-studies/cuckoo-tracking
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Davebutterflyman
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Very worrying indeed that the other 11 are not transmitting signals. It could be something less sinister than feared but the worry still remains.

Thanks for the update Jan.
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Night Owl
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:( That' not good to hear that so many of the signals aren't transmitting signals :(

Thank you for the update Jan :cool1:
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celticsparrow-Jan
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Latest News
Chance is the first to return to the UK - 26 Apr 2013
New transmissions sent late last night revealed that Chance was the first Cuckoo to have returned to the UK. His location was 40km (25 miles) north-west of Newcastle upon Tyne and just 2km (just over a mile) south of the village of Wark on Tyne. He has covered 763km (474 miles) from his position in France on 23 April and is now just over 170km (100 miles) away from Loch Katrine, where he was first tagged.

Lloyd completes desert crossing - 26 Apr 2013
The last transmissions received showed Lloyd in Algeria. He had been heading on a north-easterly trajectory but he then changed direction and started to head north-west towards Morocco. By mid-morning of 25 April he was on the edge of the High Atlas Mountains having successfully completed his crossing!

Lloyd is on his way - 23 Apr 2013
Locations received from Lloyd mid-morning of 23 April show him in central Algeria and about two thirds into his desert crossing. The next time we hear from him should be early on Friday, when, fingers crossed he will have completed the Saharan leg of his journey. His map will update tomorrow morning.
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feedyourhedgehog
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It's so exciting they've really covered some miles and it's wonderful to see them returning I would just like to hear one now :yes:
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celticsparrow-Jan
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There is some interesting info today ,David's signal has been picked up again,it looks like him and Chris might decide to stay in France this year.

Latest News
Chris remains in the Champagne-Ardenne region - 29 Apr 2013
Chris remains just SE of Mourmelon-le-Grand in the Champagne-Ardenne region of France. He has been there since 19 April. The area looks like good Cuckoo habitat, comprising blocks of woodland and areas of open woodland and scrub around an airfield. Chris staying here is clearly an example of breeding dispersal (a change in breeding area between years) rather than a stop-over en route to East Anglia, although he could of course move on later in the breeding season. It’s possible that Chris had little success finding females at Cavenham Heath near Mildenhall last year, prompting him to try pastures new this season.

Although it is well-known that a small proportion of birds (and long-distance migrants in particular) disperse between successive breeding attempts, it has been fascinating to be able to observe this process through tracking Chris – especially as he initially returned to an area in Belgium that he visited during his southward passage last summer, suggesting that prior knowledge may have been important. It is very possible that Chris was able to find some females in this area last June, which might have made his decision about where to return to more straightforward!

David in reverse gear! - 29 Apr 2013
Having still been in central Spain on 22 April, by the morning of the 24 April David had moved 350km (218 miles) NNE to the southern slopes of the Cantabrian Mountains in northern Spain. He didn’t stay there long though, as by two days later (Friday 26 April) he had moved a further 935km (580 miles) in a direction slightly E of N to the area around Sherborne on the border between Dorset and Somerset.

Very surprisingly, however, two locations received late that evening, less than two hours after the last one near Sherborne, showed that David was heading SSE over the Channel and was approaching the Cherbourg peninsula of Normandy! by the time his tag unexpectedly started transmitting the next afternoon (27 April) David had moved a total of 490km (305 miles) SE from Sherborne, taking him to a heavily wooded landscape about 72km (45 miles) E of Tours, in Centre region of France.

This is a really interesting example of spring reverse migration, a well-known phenomenon thought to occur when migrants arrive at a location and find conditions unsuitable for them. It usually involves birds moving down a mountain range or southwards, as in this case, in the hope of finding better conditions. David’s decision could have been influenced both by the cool daytime weather and falling evening temperatures on 26 April at Sherborne and by the general lack of advancement of the spring due to the unseasonably cold weather earlier on in March and April.

Chance back on the shores of Loch Katrine - 29 Apr 2013
The sensor data on Chance’s tag indicated that he was actively migrating when he was recorded in Northumberland late on 25 April. By Sunday morning (28 April) he was back on the south shores of Loch Katrine, in the Trossachs National Park in the southern Highlands of Scotland, approximately 1.6km (1 mile) east of the location at which he was caught in May last year. He is the first of our tracked Cuckoos back at his tagging site this year, although Chris would no doubt have made it some time ago had he not apparently opted to stay and breed in France.
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celticsparrow-Jan
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BB arrives in the UK - 30 Apr 2013
BB is the second of our tagged Cuckoos to make it back to the UK, following fellow Scottish Cuckoo, Chance. From his position in the Centre Region of France on 27 April, BB has travelled 675km (420 miles), crossing the English Channel to arrive in the UK. Transmissions show that he was northeast of Loughborough but some later unconfirmed signals indicate he has continued a little further north, about 32km (20 miles) and is now around 16km (10 miles) east of Mansfield, close to the village of Bilsthorpe.

On his journey north, Chance stopped near Newcastle but three days later he was back at the tagging site at Loch Katrine so we might expect BB to do the same and continue onwards fairly rapidly to arrive as early as possible to his breeding grounds. He may face competition for females from Chance who has a headstart on him!
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Davebutterflyman
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Very interesting Jan.

If that is the case then, as they say in France, bon chance, to both of them.

Thanks for the update Jan :cool2:
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Night Owl
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:thanks1: for posting the updates it's great to hear that David's signal has picked up as that gives more hope for the others to start transmitting too.
It's interesting that it looks like Chris and David may stay in France this year, I didn't know that they changed breeding locations like that :cool1:
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celticsparrow-Jan
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Latest News
Finding Chris - 16 May 2013
That was the task set by a team from Anglia News, and so, the morning of Tuesday 14 May saw the BTO’s Paul Stancliffe on Natural England’s Cavenham Heath, Suffolk in search of a bird that the BTO tagging team last saw two years previously. There was only a short wait before the first Cuckoo appeared and as Chris had been in the spot the team were now standing on only a few hours earlier, there was a good chance that it could be him – it wasn’t.

Another bird appeared and began to chase the first – this wasn’t Chris either – but then a third cuckoo joined them - this had to be Chris; it wasn’t. After a short wait another bird appeared from nowhere sporting the aerial of a satellite tag – we had found him! After two years and 40,000+ miles since he was last seen, he looked good and full of energy, joining in with the other male cuckoos on the heath in chasing a female. What an amazing bird! Watch the ITV Anglia photage on our YouTube channel here.
The end of the journey for Lloyd - 13 May 2013
Transmissions from the last few days show that all four Cuckoos which have returned to their breeding grounds are still in their respective areas. They are likely to remain in and around these areas looking for breeding opportunities for at least the next month.We now assume Lloyd has perished in Morocco as there is no reason for him to remain in his current position for so long. Last year, the earliest Cuckoo to leave the UK was Chris, on the 11 June, while David and BB left on 18 and Chance on the 22 June. Wallace, one of the birds tagged in Scotland last year, was the last to leave, transmitting from outside the UK on 23 July, just one day later than the last bird, Lyster, in 2011.

David returns to his tagging site - 9 May 2013
As suspected, David has moved on quickly from his position on the south coast and transmissions received early this morning show that he is back at Tregaron, the site where he was originally tagged. He is the only tagged male Welsh Cuckoo to have made it back. There are concerns for our other Welsh bird, Lloyd, who also wintered in the Democratic Republic of Congo as transmissions show he has not continued on from Morocco

http://www.bto.org/science/migration/tracking-studies/cuckoo-tracking
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Night Owl
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:thanks1: for the update Jan it's great to hear that Chris was eventualy spotted but very sad to hear that Lloyd hasn't survived the journey :( and that the other Cuckoos tagged in Wales haven't made it back.
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Davebutterflyman
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Great news about Chris but very saddening to hear about the others.

Thanks for the update Jan.
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Davebutterflyman
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Well...looks like they are on their way back...

http://www.wildlifeextra.com/go/news/cuckoo-migration013-bto.html
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Tabatha
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:thanks: for the info Dave and Jan. It has made interesting reading. I didn't realise they went back this early. It's a shame they lost contact with so many. :fingerscrossed: they have better luck with the new batch.
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Davebutterflyman
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I think they are the earliest summer migrant to leave Tabatha.
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celticsparrow-Jan
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It seems no sooner they arrive and they are heading off again,they are still here at Holme,lovely to be still hearing them.
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Davebutterflyman
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That's good to hear Jan and hope you manage to see one.
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