FOR those following the fascinating migratory flight this summer of the 'Dartmoor cuckoos' there is good news - Meavy has crossed the Sahara! Meavy, who is sponsored by Devon Birds and was named by Meavy Primary School children, is one of three male cuckoos being tracked by in a special project jointly undertaking by Devon Birds and Dartmoor National Park Authority. The plucky bird landed in the Ahaggar Mountains in Algeria but has now crossed the sands and reached Benin in West Africa. For the past two springs they have funded the satellite tagging of Dartmoor cuckoos to track their movements between the moor and Africa. This is part of a national cuckoo-tagging project that has been running since 2011, and is managed overall by the British Trust for Ornithology (BTO). The adult birds only spend about two months of the year in this country. The rest of the time they are on their way to it, or in their wintering grounds south of the Sahara. As the song says: 'A cuckoo comes in April, it sings its song in May. In the middle of June it changes its June and in July it flies away.' The three current tagged birds being tracked are Meavy, Emsworthy and Whortle. They have spent recent weeks on their own Tour de France towards Italy and Spain.  Whortle has been tracked in northern Italy very close to the same location in the Po Valley that he visited for a short stay this time last year.  Meanwhile the baby cuckoos are still on Dartmoor preparing to fly the nest, and will make their way to Africa next month — they venture, without their parents, purely by natural instinct to take them 'home' to Africa.  Chrissy Mason, the park authority's ecologist, is elated that Meavy has crossed the Sahara and made it to Benin, where it now has a better chance of survival with access to food supplies. She told the Times: 'Meavy was the first of our Dartmoor cuckoos to reach Africa. He was migrating across the vast Sahara and has now made it across. He has done fantastically well and it's a big sigh of relief for Meavy to have made it. She explained there were two major routes for the birds migration from the United Kingdom to Africa — through Spain and Italy 'Emsworthy is in Southern France and following the the line of national parks through Italy all the way across to Africa. 'The national parks are like their service stations on a motorway where they will stop for a rest and something to eat before going on to the next stage. It's a tough journey for them.' Chrissy told the Times that the more data collected by the project the more can be done to help the birds survive. There are estimated to be 14,000 cuckoos in the UK, and numbers here have declined by 70 per cent in the past 20 years. Dartmoor and Exmoor are now the only places in the South West where they live and there are only 100 males on Dartmoor. She told the Times: 'The data being collected is contributing to the survival of the species in this country and it is a fascinating project. ' The more information we collect the more we can help them, although so far we have found more questions than answers.' Follow the Dartmoor cuckoos on their travels through Europe and Africa by visiting the website at http://www.bto.org/science/migration/tracking-studies/cuckoo-tracking">www.bto.org/science/migration/tracking-studies/cuckoo-tracking