THE British Trust for Ornithology has fitted state-of-the-art satellite tags to eight cuckoos during the last few weeks to help understand why the iconic bird is disappearing from large parts of the UK.

To find which migration routes birds from northern England take, cuckoos from both sides of the Pennines have been tagged – three in North Yorkshire, two in Lancashire and one in the Dales as well as one further south in Sherwood Forest.