SUSTAINABILITY

AROUND THE REGIONS
22
North Yorkshire
RAF Fylingdales
The cuckoo Vigilamus © Scott Wicking
A number of cuckoos ‘stationed’ at
RAF Fylingdales, have been fitted
with satellite tracking devices by the
British Trust for Ornithology (BTO), in
an effort to monitor their migration
and track their activity. Using this
advanced technology, satellites will
detect the trackers on the back of the
cuckoos which in turn will provide this
important information on migration
and bird activity to the trust.
essence it will track the satellites which
in turn track the transmitters located
on the bird’s backs, providing the trust
with detailed flight patterns of their
day to day exploits.
The project is led by BTO scientist Dr
Chris Hewson, who said: “If we are to
produce a conservation strategy for a
bird like the cuckoo that spends most
of its time outside of the UK, we need to
understand its full life cycle. Without this
it would be like doing a jigsaw with some
of the pieces missing. With the help of
RAF Fylingdales, we hope to find some of
those missing pieces.
“Right now we want to know whether
the migration routes of birds in the north
east differ from those in other parts of
the UK RAF Fylingdales still has a healthy
population of cuckoos and what they do
once they leave for the winter could give
us important information that will help
inform cuckoo conservation across the UK.”
Whilst carrying out the tagging of
the cuckoos, Mick Carroll, a long
time Fylingdales conservation
group volunteer, enquired about
the possibility of one of the tagged
cuckoos being named ‘Vigilamus’ af ter
the station motto ‘We are watching’.
BTO kindly agreed to the request
and a tagged male adult cuckoo was
named Vigilamus at RAF Fylingdales
on 20th May 2015.
Tagged cuckoos can be tracked to
their location via the BTO website.
Information received via the satellite
tracking system showed Vigilamus
had arrived in Africa at the end of
July 2015.
Kevin Phillips CMIOSH, MIIRSM
Station Safety & Environment Advisor
Carolyn Keeble
Safety & Environment Clerk
RAF Fylingdales
The last 25 years have seen a
significant decline of almost 75% in
the number of breeding cuckoos,
predominantly in the south east of
Britain. Whilst some data is currently
available on cuckoos while they are
here in the UK these tracking devices
should hopefully provide organisations
like the BTO with a valuable insight into
the cuckoo’s habits over the winter
months and shed some light onto the
reason for their decline.
RAF Fylingdales has a big part to
play in the success of the project. In
The team with Mick Carroll (right) and Vigilamus © Scott Wicking
Sanctuary 44 • 2015 95