News

BTO sponsors rasie £3,000

The British Trust for Ornithology (BTO) raised almost £3,000 towards its cuckoo migration research project at Birdfair in Rutland over the weekend of August 19-21.

Paul Stancliffe, from the BTO, said: “We’ve just finished unpacking after another fantastic Birdfair at Rutland. The BTO stand was inundated with visitors keen to catch up on the latest news from the cuckoo-tracking project. We’d like to say thanks to all those who sponsored a cuckoo, helping us to raise almost £3,000 for the project – amazing!

”The five male cuckoos, tagged with lightweight GPS tracking devices, are now all in Africa (see News, July 27 issue). Four have made it south of the Sahara desert, with one still to make the crossing. Mr Stancliffe said: “With the onset of the rainy season, the Sahel and Sudan savannah zones will be a fairly hospitable habitat for our cuckoos for the next few months.”

Mr Stancliffe added that Clement, one of the birds, was now the most southerly of the cuckoos: “One week after apparently settling in Burkina Faso, Clement popped up in Togo, close to the border with Benin. By Sunday August 21 he had continued his journey to the east and was in western Nigeria. It is fascinating how the five birds have taken quite different routes to end up in very similar positions.”

  * To follow the progress of the five birds, Clement, Martin, Lyster, Kasper and Chris, go to the BTO website at: www.bto.org.