It looks likely that BB, Peter, Skinner, Waller and Whortle have failed to complete their migration this year, or their tags are no longer transmitting, and so we will be moving all of them to the inactive section of the website.

From time to time we ‘lose’ one or two of our Cuckoos only for them to reappear several days, or even weeks, later. We are never entirely sure why this might be at the individual level but during the course of the project we have noticed similarities between some of the ‘lost’ birds.

We have lost some of our birds just prior to them making a large movement and we think that this might be because they move into denser vegetation in order to feed up before embarking on a long flight. Moving into denser vegetation may mean that the solar panel that recharges the battery for the tag is in shade for periods of time and the battery receives a poorer charge, which in turn results in poorer performance from the satellite tag.

Once the birds have put on enough weight to begin their journey they move into the open and the tag begins charging again and the birds ‘reappear’. We also see the same thing happen, although to a lesser extent, when birds complete a long movement and presumably move into denser vegetation to rest and feed up

Several of our Cuckoo tags have not sent transmissions for over 10 days; BB, Hennah, Peter, Skinner and Waller. 

This means they are not currently shown on the main map by default, although can be switched on using the tick boxes under their photos. It's not uncommon for Cuckoos to disappear for up to several months during mid-winter as tag charging conditions in the forest are poor so we won't really know their fate unless we receive further transmissions. If they fail to move northwards when expected then either the Cuckoo may have died or the tag may failed or degraded. Our greatest concerns are still for Peter and Waller who were in the same area when signals were last received, all the way back in October.

By the 12 October Skinner had moved south to Congo and by the 17 he was in Angola, close to the area he spent last winter. He is slightly further east than last year and is just north of the Reserva Especial do Milando. It waits to be seen whether Chris or any of the other Cuckoos will join him here this year.

Skinner has travelled 925km (575 miles) from his location in north-western Nigeria and is now in western Cameroon. Other Cuckoos who had been in the north of Cameroon have all moved on due to poor conditions so it will be interesting to see whether conditions are better in the south-west and how long Skinner remains here for. 

With most cuckoos now in the Sahel region, we're entering a fairly quiet period in the annual cycle of the tagged cuckoos with less movement than during the migration season.

Birds who completed their desert crossing will spend time in the Sahel recovering their body condition, and some may stay quite a long time. In previous years, cuckoos have stayed in this area for as much as several months, while others spend a shorter amount of time before moving south into the humid zone forests.

The eastern Sahel in Chad and south Sudan has received plenty of rain recently, and thus conditions are likely good for cuckoos. Northern Cameroon was slightly drier than average in August, and so cuckoos such as Derek, Dudley, Stanley, and Emsworthy may be moving on if foraging conditions aren't suitable.

By the evening of 25 August, Skinner was on the move again, heading 250km (155  miles) south-east to Nigeria and pausing at a location near Sokoto, close to where the Sokoto river and the Rima river join together. At this time of year there should be regular rainfail.

By 11 August Skinner had journeyed a futher 315km (195 miles) from the location he first grounded in within Mali. Yesterday he had made even more progress and was in Niger. He still has a little way to go to make it to the forest edge further south but hopefully this progress is a good sign. 

Skinner has embarked on his desert crossing. He has made good progress, having left Spain late on 30 July and travelling over the Atlas mountains in the early hours of the 31, he made his way south over Algeria and by the 2 August he was in Mali. However he appears to have grounded here and signals received today show him still in the same location, which from the satellite images, may not be as barren as other parts. Hopefully he will continue onwards shortly and make it safely across. 

Skinner has left France and continued south to Spain where Meavy, Gilbert, Dudley and Chester are currently located. In previous years we have only seen East Anglian and Devon Cuckoos take this route but this year we also have Chester, one of the birds tagged in Sussex, Dudley, one of the Nottinghamshire birds and Gilbert, a New Forest bird, heading this way. 

The three Cuckoos which took this route in 2012/13 all perished but in 2013/14 5 of the 6 birds which took this route successfully made it to their wintering grounds. 

Over the weekend Skinner left the UK and yesterday turned up in France, just inside the French border with Belgium. Last year was the first year we started tracking Skinner and he headed much further north-east when he left the UK, first transmitting from a location just within the Netherlands, before then heading down through France.  

With three un-named birds left we are letting you choose what to name one of our Sherwood Cuckoos!  Anyone who sponsors a Cuckoo before the end of June will be entered in to a draw. We’ll then pick one entry at random and will contact the winner who can then suggest a suitable name*. Find out how you could name a Cuckoo. 

Our East Anglian Cuckoos have yet to budge, with all seven birds remaining in the UK. In previous years Chris has left between 11-21 June, while last year Skinner left on 30 June and Derek on 17 July. It may be a while before we see any movement from these two birds but keep an eye on Chris over the weekend.  

With a flurry of Cuckoos leaving the UK, Ash looks to be the only tagged Cuckoo remaining in the most southern of our tagging locations. 

Skinner remained in France until at least April 17 but early on 19 April he was crossing the Bay of Biscay, reaching Brittany a few hours later. He appears to have spent at least 8 hours there in the commune of  La Forêt-Fouesnant. The tag next transmitted at lunch time on the 21 April revealing that Skinner was back in the UK, close to Northampton, and the first of this year's tagged Cuckoos to arrive safely back in the UK!

Last year, our first Cuckoo back to the UK was Chance, arriving on 26 April. This is the first year we have tracked Skinner so we do not know whether he is a bird that arrives early back to the UK or whether milder weather has encouraged an early return this year. Having rested close to Northampton overnight, by the morning of the 22 he was on his way again and at 5am he was close to Whitlingham Broad, Norfolk, the site where he was tagged last May.

Skinner is the first tagged Cuckoo to make it back to Europe! From the tip of Morroco he flew almost directly north for 770km (480 miles), settling just south of the Cantabrian Mountains, to the east of Leon. Will he be the first to make it back to the UK? 

We are really pleased that Skinner has completed one of the most hazardous elements the Cuckoos face on their migration! We were a little worried about him over the weekend as signals showed that he was stationary in Algeria, in the middle of the desert, all day during Saturday. His decision to ground may have been due to winds from the north-west pushing him in the wrong direction or making it hard going. On the morning of the 5 April however, further signals were received which showed he had pressed on northwards a further 530km (335 miles).

New locations received today (which will update on the map tomorrow) reveal he continued to Morocco, clearing the desert and the High Atlas Mountains, and is the first of our tagged Cuckoos to successfully cross the desert this year. Well done Skinner!   

Skinner is the first of our tagged Cuckoos this year to embark on the desert crossing! After a gap of 9 days, Skinner came back online on 3 April and transmissions placed him in Mauritania, close to the border with Mali. From the low tag temperature, between 7 and 18 degrees, we could tell he was high in the air and mid-migration. He had travelled around 1050km (750 miles) from his previous location in Ivory Coast since the 26 March.

He continued his journey overnight in the same direction and on the morning of the 4 April his tag came on again, some 800 km further on, in northern Mali, close to the Algerian border.  

Skinner made his southward migration via Spain and then down through Mali and Algeria and it looks like he may be heading back the same way.

If Skinner is successful in returning to the UK, this will be only the second full migration we will have captured from any of the birds who took the south-westerly route through Spain. Due to bad conditions in previous years many of the others perished before completing the journey.

In mid-winter Skinner was our most southerly Cuckoo. He was then the first to make his move north, becoming the most northerly Cuckoo, for a short time. He is now, once again, one of our most southerly Cuckoos (only Derek is further south). Having arrived in Cameroon on 13 January, he has since turned back south and is now back in Gabon, on the outskirts of the Minkébé National Park,  276km (171 miles) south east of his previous location. Clearly, something was not quite to his liking in southern Cameroon.

Skinner has moved again but this time he has really gone for it, moving 1283km (795 miles) from his location close to Cuckoo Chris. After a short stopover in Gabon, following a northward movement of 757km (470 miles), he carried on north-west and as of 10pm on 13 January was in south-west Cameroon, 43km (27 miles) north of the border with Equatorial Guinea.  He has gone from being our most southerly Cuckoo to our most northerly, leapfrogging all of the other cuckoos since the beginning of the year.

By the 28 December, Skinner had travelled a short distance south but stayed in that location only briefly, heading north-west 130km (80 miles) towards the coast, and by 30 December was in Quiçama National Park. Due to war and poaching much of the wildlife, including the Elephant population, in this park was decimated but a rehabilitation programme during 2000 and 2001 saw two successful relocations of elephant from over populated parks in Botswana. 

The next signals received were on 6 January and revealed he had again moved on, 110km (65km) north. His new location means that he is now just 65km (40 miles) west of Chris, another of our East Anglian Cuckoos.  

Chris and Skinner look set to spend Christmas in Angola, having spent several weeks in the area. Skinner first transmitted from Angola on 18 November, while Chris joined him at the beginning of December. 

Angola is a new country for the project, visited by the Cuckoos for the first time this year. In the past two years of the project, Chris has spent Christmas in the Congolian swamp forests but has opted for a change this year. We aren't entirely sure why, but it is likely conditions weren't as good this year, as other Cuckoos using this area have also moved away.

When we first started the tracking project it was estimated that the satellite-tags fitted to the Cuckoos would last for between 2-3 years. So far we have 2.5 years of data for Chris on his migration and, fingers crossed, we are really hoping to complete a third year to see whether this different wintering location has any affect on his return migration to the UK.   It will also be interesting to see whether Angola is a place that Skinner may return to, as this is the first year we have tracked his migration and so do not have data to indicate this may be different from previous years. 

Low quality transmissions received from Skinner's tag show that he has moved 85km (53 miles) further south within Angola, to the Cuanza Norte region. 

Skinner was still in Congo on 14 November but his new location, received yesterday, really surprised us! Skinner had moved 550km, heading even further south, and as of yesterday afternoon he was in Angola.

Not only is this a brand new country for any of our tagged Cuckoos since the project began, it is also the furthest south, by several 100 kilometres, that any of our Cuckoos have ever ventured. If you are surprised by this – take a look at what the Cuckoos from Belarus have done here. 

The last signal from Skinner's tag in Gabon was on the 1 November. A couple of days afterwards he popped up in the Reserve de chasse de la Lefini in the Pool region of Congo, 340km further south-east from his previous location. This location is about 120km (75 miles) north of Kinshasa. He is now one of two of our most southerly Cuckoos, David being the other, who is 480km (300 miles) to the east. 

Up until the 20 October, Skinner remained in southern Cameroon but by the 24 October he had travelled 200km (125 miles) and was in north-eastern Gabon in an area of the Congo rainforest.

Despite this, Skinner is still 400km north of the most southerly Cuckoos, David and Tor. Will he move further south to winter or will he be happy to stay slightly further north, as Chris has tended to do in previous years? 

Shortly after Skinner's movement, Ken also travelled to Gabon, transmitting from a location around 220km (140 miles) to the south of his location. 

From the Zamfara Region of Nigeria, Skinner has backtracked, heading both west and slightly north - not what we would normally expect our Cuckoos to be doing at this time! This movement of about 235km (148 miles) takes him has taken him back to Niger, where he is now in the south-east corner of the country. In the last few days, Whortle has recently arrived in the area in the Zamfara region which he left behind. We aren't sure what has prompted this movement, but if it is poor feeding conditions, we can expect Whortle might alss move on from that location shortly. As for Skinner, we will have to wait for further transmissions to see when he may resume his journey in a south or easterly direction. 

In the last few days both Ken and Derek have moved around 100km (60 miles) eastwards, although they still remain in Burkina Faso and Nigeria respectively. Meanwhile Skinner has moved out of Niger and headed 305 km (190 miles) east to Nigeria. He is about 90km (50 miles) north-east of the town of Gummi. This echoes Nicks (much bigger) movement last week from Nigeria to Cameroon.

On the 18 August Skinner’s tag transmitted from Niger revealing that he had moved on from his last location in Burkina Faso. He is still close to the border between the two countries and around 100km (60 miles) from Niamey, the capital and largest city of Niger. Niamey lies on the Niger River and has an estimated population of over 780,000. 

Skinner’s last transmission from Spain was on 7 August and by the evening of 9 August, Skinner had left the country, crossed the sea, flown over the Atlas Mountains and was continuing south over Algeria. A series of transmissions show him continuing his migration over the evening of the 9 and throughout the day of 10 August.  Further transmissions received today reveal he rested in the desert for several hours before continuing onwards and a good location shows him later on in central Mali. Since the 7 August he has flown at least 2805km (1745 miles)!

Transmissions on 26 July still place Skinner in Spain, to the east of Checa in the Guadalajara region. 

By the morning of the 10 July it appears that Skinner had left the Netherlands and ventured south to central France, where he was 55km (35 miles) north of Lyon.  Poor signals this morning indicate he has continued to Spain and is in the Catalonia region,  675km (420 miles) from his location in France. If this is confirmed by further transmissions, he will be the second of our Cuckoos tagged in 2013 to venture in to Spain. 

Skinner becomes the tenth of our tagged Cuckoos to leave and he, like BB, has travelled to The Netherlands. Transmissions place him in the south-east in the De Maasduinen National Park, close to the border with Germany. The park consists of forests and heathlands on a sandy plateau along the river Meuse.

Cuckoo 128302 has been named Skinner after Norfolk farmer, broadcaster and BTO supporter, Chris Skinner.