Roy we still hope is alive but, given that it has been so long since the tag had sufficient charge to transmit, we suspect it will have degraded so that it might not be able to turn on, even if subjected to enough sunlight at some point in the future. His last location is much further north than the other four Cuckoos current positions. We would expect that he would also move south and given that the tag hasn't transmitted recently, we may assume that we are down to tracking just five Cuckoos.

Roy’s tag has not transmitted since the beginning of October. From the temperature and charge data, there doesn’t seem to be any specific cause for concern but his tag had failed to transmit for three duty cycles before the last messages were received so there may be a problem with it. 

BB’s tag transmitted locations over the weekend showing that he remained in Chad.  Meanwhile, we have not received any further transmissions from Roy's tag since the 6 October. Whilst we had no cause for concern for Wallace when his tag last transmitted on the 14 September, the longer the silence continues, the more we wonder why.

Sometime between 20 and 22 September, Roy moved 94km (59 miles) ESE, thereby crossing the Oubangui River and moving from CAR into the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). He has moved from a savannah landscape with gallery forest to a landscape dominated by forest but still with plenty of open patches and edges – based on what we saw last winter, this looks like very nice habitat for a Cuckoo. 

Roy is in Basse-Kotto prefecture of CAR, about 29km (18 miles) NNW of its capital Mobaye. The habitat in the area is southern Guinea Savannah with gallery forest along the rivers – he has stopped just north of the vast Congo rainforest. If Roy continued on the same path, he would pass about 160km (100 miles) east of the area where the Cuckoos tracked last winter ended up. As the rain is moving south and areas to the north are beginning to dry up, we expect some of the other Cuckoos to follow Roy and Chris to the south over the next couple of weeks.  

There have been no movements of note from our Cuckoos in the last few days. Transmissions have been received from Indy and Chance today and Lloyd, David, Wallace, Roy, BB and Chris in the last few days. Hopefully there will be more to report after the weekend! 

By the early morning of 7 September Roy was already 141km (88 miles) south of his previous location and was moving SE along the border between Chad and Sudan. By mid-morning on 9 September he had covered a further 251km (156 miles) and was in southern Sudan, 50km east of the border with Central African Republic and 106km (66 miles) north of the world's newest country, South Sudan. Like Indy, he is slowly moving south into less arid areas, following the band of rains produced by the Inter-Tropical Convergence Zone as it moves south. 

We have received signals from both BB and Roys' tags which show that they remain in the east of Chad, close to the border with Sudan. They are just 48 km (30 miles) apart and are the two most northerly of the tracked Cuckoos in Chad.

Locations received once Roy’s tag resumed transmissions today (31 August) show that he has completed his desert crossing. He is in eastern Chad, a few kms from the border with Sudan and about 48km (30 miles) NE of BB. At about 14° N, he is the most northerly of the Cuckoos south of the Saharan. He is in the northern Sahel, where annual rainfall is low, but the bulk falls in July & August at this latitude so the area should be green with plenty of insect food available at the moment. 

A series of locations received early yesterday (29 August) showed that Roy had indeed initiated his migration two days previously and that he was moving south over eastern Libya – the location on the map shows where he had reached by 1030hrs. This suggests that he had moved SSE through Albania and Greece before crossing over the Mediterranean Sea and into Libya. His tag should resume transmissions tomorrow afternoon, at which time we hope he will have joined the other four Cuckoos that are currently in southern Chad.

From the area of Danilovgrad, Montenegro, a series of unconfirmed transmissions show that on the evening of August 26, Roy was moving in a southeasterly direction. The last transmission received shows him over the middle of Lake Scutari, just inside the border of Albania. Is he making his move south? We expect further transmissions tomorrow morning. 

From his unconfirmed location in Croatia on 8 August, Roy travelled south, joining David in Montenegro, on the evening of 10 August. Since then he has been travelling around the municpality of Danilovgrad, presumably searching for a good source of food.

From Austria to Italy and then back to Austria! Having been briefly in Italy, Roy moved back into Austria by 1 August and was again a few kms north of Millstätter See. Yesterday evening we received a single unconfirmed location that put Roy in Croatia. If confirmed, it would appear that he is following David and, presumably, BB by taking a route east of the Adriatic Sea. 

Roy moved west from Austria into northern Italy on the evening of 25 July. He has travelled around 192 km (119 miles) and is in a wooded area close to a the comunes of Weitental and Margen. Will he stop and feed up here or move straight through?

Having reached southern Germany by 10 July, Roy continued to press on and by 13 July he was in the state of Carinthia in southern Austria. By 15 July he was settled a few kms north of Millstätter See, giving a total onward movement of 245km (153 miles) SSE form his position in Germany.

Roy has travelled 1080km (that's around 670 miles) to reach Germany! His last tag transmission was on the 8 July from North York Moors National Park but by the evening of the 10 July he was close to the town of Regensburg in the south-west of Germany.  This means Wallace is the last Scottish Cuckoo to leave, and with good reason to believe Lyster has left too, he becomes the last of all our male Cuckoos to leave the UK.   

Our last Scottish Cuckoo has been given a name. 115593 will now be known as Roy after Rob Roy (Robert Roy MacGregor), Scotland's own version of Robin Hood. Rob Roy was born at Glengyle, at the head of Loch Katrine where the Cuckoos were tagged, in what is now Loch Lomond and The Trossachs National Park.
 

Roy has left Wallace behind in Scotland, and followed the same route as Mungo before him to arrive in the North York Moors National Park.

On 1 July, Roy's satellite tag was transmitting from 10km south of Dumfries. By the evening of 3 July we received data from the North York Moors National Park – this is a movement of 180km (110 miles) in a south-easterly direction. This is the second of our Scottish Cuckoos to arrive in this area and, like Mungo before him, Roy should find plenty of large hairy caterpillars here in the rough grassland adjacent to the heather moorland. Will he continue to follow the same migratory route as Mungo, who is currently in Switzerland?

Both Wallace and Roy remain in Scotland whilst the three other Scottish birds are currently in Europe. Transmissions received yesterday indicated that Wallace was heading southwards. He moved 30km (20 miles) from his position between Irvine and Troon and was close to the village of Patna. From here he headed off in a south-easterly direction, flying 110km (70miles) before transmitting from Canonbie. He is very close to the Scottish-English border.

On Monday morning (18 June) Roy was still close to his tagging location, having returned there briefly from Flanders Moss. Locations received this morning (20 June) show that he has moved south to an area of forestry immediately to the south-east of Dumfries.

One of the five Scottish cuckoos, Roy had his satellite tag fitted on 16 May at Glen Gyle, Loch Katrine, Stirling. Being at least two years of age he is an adult male. For the first 28 days after tagging he was settled in the Loch Katrine area.