The Cuckoo Monitoring Challenge
On the finish of March, Hafren (a male grownup cuckoo) left the Republic of Côte d’Ivoire to start his epic migration north to England. From Côte d’Ivoire, Hafren skirted the jap border of Guinea, crossed south-eastern Mali, motored via Mauritania, and—after a journey of round 1,370 miles—arrived in Western Sahara.
By early April, Hafren had reached Mijek in Western Sahara. Over the next days, he continued north, reducing up via Morocco. His path took him close to the most important cities of Marrakesh and Fes, earlier than reaching the north Moroccan coast close to Temsaman commune in Driouch Province on Saturday, 5 April. Hafren’s most up-to-date sign exhibits that he has now set off throughout the Mediterranean. If all goes effectively, he ought to quickly arrive in Spain, someplace between Malaga and Almeria.
Hafren is only one of 15 cuckoos being tracked as a part of the British Belief for Ornithology’s Cuckoo Monitoring Challenge. Since 2011, the challenge has tagged greater than 100 birds and tracked their annual migratory journeys from the UK to Africa and again once more. Now is a superb time to take a look at the challenge’s stay monitoring map. Male cuckoos usually arrive in Britain in the direction of the tip of April or the start of Might, which suggests the map is about to turn into very lively. Wilfred and Hafren have already begun their northward journeys, and they’re going to quickly be joined by the opposite 13 cuckoos.
Through the years, the challenge has uncovered necessary insights into cuckoo migration. There are two primary routes taken by the birds: one via Spain and one through Italy. Knowledge exhibits that cuckoos migrating through Spain have a better mortality charge than these taking the Italian route. Apparently, the birds utilizing the Spanish route additionally have a tendency to come back from areas of the UK the place cuckoo populations have declined.
