With spring comes the return of the migratory birds! Among all the migratory birds equipped with GPS in 2023 for the MIGRATLANE programme, the first to arrive is “Clément” the grey cuckoo! “Clément” wears a light GPS tag (5 g) which does not transmit data in Africa (GSM, LTE-M protocol). So we had to wait until he returned to Europe to find out where the bird wintered: in equatorial and subtropical Africa, particularly Angola!
The spring crossing of the Sahara was completed in a single flight, leaving Mali on the morning of 28 March, with flight heights reaching 6,500 m above the desert! Flying high to keep the heat down. The bird did not stop until two days later, on 30 March at 7:00 am, in the Catalan mountains.
The crossing of the Mediterranean Sea took place at an altitude of between 4,000 and 5,000 m from Algeria, then just a few metres above the water after flying over the Balearic Islands to Catalonia. The risk of collision with offshore installations such as wind turbines can therefore vary during the same crossing, depending on the direction of the journey (outward or return migration), the location and very probably the weather at the time of the crossing.