Robyn is here to up date us on our walking challenge... The Steps Series is a set of challenges – everyone can help us walk or run the same distance as a migratory route of one of Rainham’s wildlife visitors, or even distances to places - all your steps can count!
Get outdoors and active – great for your health and a great way to explore . Rainham Marshes is a perfect place to explore if you are trying to walk or run a certain distance or number of steps, or just get outside to enjoy the fresh air.
Here is Robyn to tell us the latest:
Since the end of February we have been trying to complete the Cuckoo Challenge - everyone adding in their steps so that together we walk the equivalent of a cuckoo’s migration route from Central Africa!
For the third challenge in the series we were trying to match the distance that a cuckoo flies on its migratory route, from the Central Africa to Rainham Marshes(6140 miles or 13,508,000 steps!). For this challenge we are used the British Trust for Ornithology's cuckoo tracking to follow Victor, and his journey to the UK.
Cuckoos are an iconic bird of the British summertime but to get to Britain they have to undergo an arduous journey north from the sub-tropics of west coast Africa across the burning Sahara wastes followed by the snow-capped Atlas, the Mediterranean Sea, the Pyrenees or central Massif (depending on the route!), the rest of mainland Europe and finally the English Channel before some settle down on our very own RSPB Rainham Marshes for just a brief few months.
We are fortunate to usually have at least three bubbling female Cuckoos seeking out the attentions of about half a dozen amorous males out on the marsh from late April through to early July when the whole migration route begins in reverse.
The enormous ever hungry young will not fledge from their Reed Warbler or Dunnock parents nest till a good few weeks after this before they too will attempt this amazing journey.
Cuckoo at Rainham by Lee Spence
On the 8th August, we finally reached Rainham Marshes after walking the distance of a cuckoo migration from Central Africa! To be precise we were walking from a town called Bakisa in the Central African Republic, heading west to begin with to Guinea and then headed North across the Sahara into Spain, through France and finally across the English channel and up to RSPB Rainham Marshes. The total distance travelled was 6140 miles stepping 13,508,000 steps. We completed this in 167 days! Which was over 100 days slower than Victor the cuckoo… I still think we did a pretty good job!We had 745 total visitors, staff and volunteers contributing to our steps challenge as well as groups from Rainham Harriers, Harold Wood Running Club, Havering 90 Joggers, London loopers and even PWC employees on the corporate volunteering day. Our top contributor in terms of total steps was Peter Boatman again, logging an incredible 645,861 steps throughout the challenge and visiting us on 71 days of the challenge!
Our largest contributor in a single visit was Chloe Edmead, who chose to train for her London marathon along our River Wall trail with a massive 39,000 steps in 4 hours! The most Active in Nature staff member was Howard, beating second place by only 884 steps… It might have been me who came second, and it may have been slightly irritating to lose by so little! The average steps per visit are just shy of 10,000 – the recommended daily target to maintain a healthier lifestyle which is fantastic to see.
It’s great to reflect on how active our visitors are getting, and I think everyone has engaged so well in what is just a bit of fun. But just take a minute to think that Victor the cuckoo, in the time it took us collectively to walk to Rainham Marshes, had not only reached the UK, but found a mate (or two), hung around for a couple of months and headed back to Central Africa across the Sahara by the 12th July. We have seen some juvenile cuckoos flying overhead across the marsh over the last week so perhaps we can claim that we aimed to get back before they left for Africa?We will be holding a new steps challenge very soon so please keep your eyes peeled!