Cuckoo Clocking

A cuckoo named after the BBC wildlife presenter Chris Packham has clocked up 60,000 miles of air travel between the UK and Africa. The British Trust for Ornithology (BTO) has tagged a number of cuckoos with satellite-tracking devices to learn about migration patterns. Here is how some of them have fared:

Chris Class of 2011

Status: Active

Chris has made seven trips between the UK and Africa, visiting 22 countries and is currently in the Congo rainforest.

Lyster Class of 2011

Status: Inactive - missing presumed dead

Lyster was last traced to barren desert in Mauritania in 2012 on his second journey from Norfolk to Africa.

Clement Class of 2011

Status: inactive - deceased

Clement made it to his wintering grounds, travelling via Spain, but died in Cameroon on the return journey to Britain in 2012.

Hennah Class of 2014

Status: Active

Hennah was tagged in the New Forest, Hampshire in May this year. She left the UK in June and was tracked in the Central African Republic in October.

Dudley Class of 2014

Status: Active

Tagged in Sherwood Pines, Nottinghamshire this year, Dudley's transmitter indicated in July that he had cut across to Niger from his location in Spain.

Nightingale under catastrophic threat

There is no other bird that sings so deeply, so full of ecstasy as the nightingale. The melody is endlessly varied. Nightingales are best known for their singing talent. In the spring, they sing during the day as well as at night. As a youngster growing up in East Kent, to hear the nightingale sing in Spring was almost as commonplace as hearing blackbird, song thrush or robin. No longer.

Over the years the geographical range of the nightingale has shrunk. Habitat loss, changes in farming practices, climate change and hunters have contributed to the decline of this beautiful song bird. In the United Kingdom this migrant from Africa will no longer be found anywhere north of a line drawn from the Humber to the Severn estuary. Hotspots for the nightingale are still to be found in the south of England and it is now more important than ever to ensure that these sites are protected, lest we are to see the ultimate extinction of this bird from our territory.

Lodge Hill on the Hoo Peninsula of the North Kent coast is a nationally protected wildlife site and is home to a nationally-important population of nightingales. And yet, Medway Council’s Planning Committee has approved an Outline Planning Application by Land Securities on behalf of the Ministry of Defence for the development of 5,000 homes on the 330 hectare Chattenden Woods and Lodge Hill Special Site of Scientific Interest (SSSI). This decision, announced on the 4th of September, will directly destroy 144 hectares of the SSSI, one of the largest losses of a SSSI since the Wildlife and Countryside Act came into force in 1981. The decision is in direct conflict with the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF).

Lodge Hill is a Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI), designated by the Government’s statutory authority for the natural environment - Natural England. It was designated for the dense breeding population of nightingales that comprise more than one per cent of the entire UK population. Between 1995 and 2008, the numbers of UK nightingale population more than halved (53 per cent).

For Medway Council to approve this proposal is both arrogant and contemptible and shows a complete disregard for Natural England’s site designation. It puts greed and truculence before any consideration for conservation, before any consideration for the preservation of a song bird, that should be paramount.

If this development goes ahead it will be a crime of magnitude that would lead to irretrievable loss. It must not be allowed to happen. 

Twitchers flock to see Great Spotted Cuckoo

A rare bird seen in Wales just three times since the 1800s has landed in Pembrokeshire. The Great Spotted Cuckoo has been photographed in Penally, causing hundreds of bird enthusiasts to flock to the area. Experts have said the bird normally migrates from Africa to southern Spain but the warm weather must have caused it to overshoot continental Europe.

A great spotted cuckoo was last seen on British shores in Norfolk in 2009.  Brian Egan of Rare Bird Alert said the bird arrived in Pembrokeshire last week. He said: “We don’t know if it’s male or female but it is a young bird and inexperienced, so he’s missed the mainland [of Europe] while migrating from Africa.”

The British Birds Rarities Committee says this type of cuckoo has been seen in Britain 46 times since records began but this is only the fourth time in Wales.