BTO cuckoos show first signs of moving north

07/02/2012 11:46:31 Courtesy of the BTO

February 2012. There are lots of questions that we've been asking about our five Cuckoos, one of which is "when will they start heading north?"

In the last few days we have received transmissions from both Lyster (shown on the map as a dark orange line) and Martin (the green line) showing what some consider a northwards movement of note after such a period of relative activity. There was much excitement from some of the team but there is disagreement here about whether this is the start of migration or not.

One of the other burning questions right now is what has happened to Kasper?

Martin and Lyster head north
A transmission received from Martin's tag on the 30 Jan showed he had moved 145km (91 miles) in a north-north-east direction from Oko and is now close to the Likouala River. He is around 138 km (86 miles) from Lyster.

 

Between a transmission on the 30 Jan and another on the 1 Feb Lyster had moved 75km (46 miles) north-east and then a further 46km (29 miles) north-west. At 17.57 on the 1 Feb at he was near Ndzakou having moved a total of around 121km (75 miles). He is now 86km (53 miles) from Martin and 47km (30 miles) from Clement.

No movements from Clement and Chris
At 04.16 on the morning of 1 Feb, Clement showed no change and was still in the same area that he has been in since arriving in Congo. He is only around 47km (29 miles) from Lyster. With no further transmissions from Kasper, it could mean that Clement becomes our most southerly Cuckoo. The rains, if they aren't already, will be retreating northwards shortly and so we may see some movement from Clement soon.

A transmission from Chris's tag on 31 January at 08.10 placed him in the same location in the swamp-land he has been in for some weeks.

 

Kasper the ghost?
The fact that all five of Cuckoos made it all the way to Africa without any losses was a pleasant surprise to us but we now haven't picked up any messages from Kasper's tag since 6 January. There are a few possible reasons why this might be, including tag failure, poor tag charging due to the weather or Kasper staying under the forest canopy, or he could have been taken by a predator.

At the moment, we can only sit and wait to see if there is a further transmission. There is still a chance that his tag might spring back to life and beam us a signal, albeit slimmer and slimmer as time passes, especially as the rains retreat north and the area becomes dryer and less habitable.

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