John Carter
speaker
54 appearances
1 recordings
1 series
first heard Jul 2026
last heard 22 Jul
John Carter’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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recordings per month · last 12 monthsRecordings per month over the last 12 months — 1 in all, peaking in Jul 2026 with 1.
Appearances
He's definitely, rather appropriately, the most northern of all our cuckoos.
So not only was he ringed in the far north, he's also the furthest north at the moment.
We started a cuckoo tracking project back in 2011.
Prior to which we knew very little about cuckoos and which direction they'd go when they migrate, when they leave, or any of that stuff.
We'd had no information about them whatsoever.
They've been very well studied as a breeding bird,
But as a migrant, we knew nothing.
We had one ringing recovery from 1930, and that was it.
So we knew nothing about it.
So we started doing the satellite tagging project.
We've done over 140 different cuckoos now, and we've tracked their routes as they leave the UK, where they go to winter, which we now know, and which routes they use to come back to the UK every spring.
The reason why this is really important is that cuckoos are declining at an alarming rate in certain areas.
So they've been really declining in the English lowlands, but doing quite well in the Scottish and Welsh uplands.
So what's causing that?
Is it to do with, you know, is it declines to do with the breeding grounds or is it the routes they take or where they winter?
So we didn't know any of that and how it was impacting on it.
So by understanding the routes they take, we have a much better idea of what's causing some of the pressures that these birds face, but also some of the positives as well.
Cuckoos have long had a real connection with people.
The Times famously used to publish, you know, the first cuckoo heard every year.
And people, I mean, it's such a familiar sound as well, isn't it?
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