Exeter scientists call on public to look and listen out for cuckoos

April is the month when cuckoos will start arriving and breeding on Dartmoor and its surrounding areas, after wintering in the African Congo. The birds will spend as little as ten weeks in the UK before departing for warmer climes.

Along with the county’s bird society Devon Birds, researchers at the University of Exeter are asking people to help build a better understanding of local cuckoo hotspots by entering information on sightings or hearings into a special project website.

The Devon Birds cuckoo sightings page was set up in 2014 as part of a collaboration between the society, the University of Exeter and the Dartmoor National Park Authority. The Citizen Science project has just launched the 2016 version of the page which aims to collect cuckoo sightings from across Devon to build up a detailed live map of the Devon cuckoo distribution.

Sara Zonneveld, a PhD researcher in the department of Biosciences, working on bird breeding and conservation on Dartmoor, said the information collected by the public over the last two years, with over 2,000 records submitted, has been extremely valuable.
http://www.exeter.ac.uk/news/featurednews/title_506855_en.html