Meet David Peckham, the Yorkshire cuckoo leading experts a merry dance

Cuckoo numbers have fallen across the UK. Experts hope tagging some of the birds will help them work out how to arrest their decline.

The cuckoo's astonishing journey from the Dales to Africa could hold the clue to why the bird's numbers are in freefall.

DAVID Peckham doesn’t look much of a mover. But while arguably not as graceful in action as his near footballing namesake, the bird’s seasonal feat of athleticism and sheer stamina is just as impressive as any curling free kick into the top corner.

After a summer spent in the woods of the Yorkshire Dales National Park, the cuckoo – given his tongue-in-cheek name by schoolchildren as part of a national competition – embarks on a 4,000-mile journey that takes him across the English Channel, over Germany and into northern Italy.

There Peckham prepares for an epic flight across one of the most inhospitable environments known to man, or bird – the Sahara Desert.

“The most remarkable thing is that Peckham does this last leg of the journey, which takes two-and-a-half days, without stopping,” says Dr Chris Hewson of the British Trust for Ornithology (BTO).

“The cuckoo doesn’t look the strongest flyer, and it’s certainly not as graceful as a bird like the swift, but the more we know about its migrating habits, the more impressive it becomes.”

Hewson and his team of experts have spent the last few months keenly tracking Peckham’s progress to his winter home as part of a project set up to discover why the cuckoo is in danger of disappearing from the UK’s skies.

Numbers across Britain have halved over the last quarter of a century, with England’s cuckoo population plunging by a worrying two-thirds.

Dr Chris Hewson of the British Trust for Ornithology with Peckham after his tagging. Photo: BTO.

For the past five years, the signals of 50 cuckoos have been helping researchers from the BTO gather information about what happens to them when they leave our shores.

Each bird carries a tiny lightweight satellite tracking device as they make their journey from breeding grounds in the UK to Africa. The trust hopes it will help to solve the riddle of why the cuckoo population has dwindled so dramatically over recent decades.

Peckham is one of the lucky ones. Another Yorkshire cuckoo – named Vigilamus by staff at RAF Fylingdales who helped with his tagging – is missing, presumed dead, after arriving back on the North York Moors in blizzard conditions.