The British Trust for Ornithology (BTO) has fitted 10 more Cuckoos with state-of-the-art satellite tags, allowing scientists and the general public to track their annual migration to central Africa and back.
The UK has lost more than a third of its Cuckoos in the past 25 years but the full reasons why are still unclear. Following these birds on migration will help researchers understand the pressures they face.
Irish Cuckoos have been included in the project this year for the first time, as part of a collaboration between BTO and Ireland’s National Parks & Wildlife Service. Ireland’s Cuckoo population has declined by 27% since the early 1980s.
Since it began in 2011, the BTO Cuckoo Tracking Project has tagged more than 100 Cuckoos. Its work has revealed that English Cuckoos migrate more often via routes associated with higher mortality than Scottish Cuckoos do. This is the first year that the project has tagged Cuckoos in Ireland, which will reveal for the first time the routes that these birds take.
The differences in survival rates are linked to the conditions the birds encounter at the sites in southern Europe where they stop to refuel. The availability of large insect prey on their breeding grounds in the UK and Ireland may also impact their ability to successfully complete their migration south.
Four Cuckoos were tagged in Ireland: ‘Cuach Carran’ in Burren National Park in County Clare; and ‘Cuach Cores’, ‘Cuach Torc’, and ‘KP’ near Incheens in Killarney National Park, County Kerry. In England, ‘George' and 'Michael' were tagged at Loddon Common in the Norfolk Broads, ‘Jasper’ was tagged in King’s Forest, Suffolk and ‘Trent’ was tagged at Ryall, Worcestershire.
Researchers got a surprise at Knepp, Sussex, when they caught a bird they had tagged the previous year but who was presumed to have died. ‘Bluey’, as this bird was named, was fitted with a new tag alongside a new bird, ‘Sayaan’, bringing the total number of new tags deployed to 10.
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Posted On: 07/06/2023