• This Week's Migration Map and Data
• News from the Migration Trail
• Extensive Egg-loading on Milkweed Noted
• Which Grows Faster, a Monarch or a Milkweed Plant?
• Video Clip: Caterpillar Feast
• Ms. Monarch Junior: Welcome to the World!
• Earth Day: A Good Time to Remember Monarch Habitat Needs
• Compare and Contrast: Flower-Powered Migratory Species
• Challenge Question #12
• Discussion of CQ #11: If You Weighed 2,000 Times More...
• Wanted: Your Monarch and Milkweed Sightings

Use today's data to make your own map, or print and analyze our map:

• Migration Map
• Migration Data for Classroom Mapping
• Slideshow (Week-by-week animation)

A North Carolina observer has been seeing "at least half a dozen a day." In contrast, he usually sees only a few monarchs during the entire spring season.

"I never remember this many sightings in the spring," agreed naturalist Pat Sutton of New Jersey Audubon.

The kids at Rabun County Elementary in Georgia sighted 5 monarchs this week. “We are very excited about their return!” they exclaimed.

Two monarch butterflies were sighted on the playing fields at the Swain School in Allentown, PA, to the delight of the third graders who saw them.

A man in North Carolina never saw the first monarch in his backyard, but he knows exactly when she was there. He checked the milkweed in his garden at 3 pm and found no eggs. When he checked again four hours later, eggs were there! Eggs are a telltale sign that monarchs have arrived. Just like the Easter Bunny you never see, monarchs leave eggs behind for you to find.

The monarchs are moving northward just as the milkweed appears, according to this week's observers.

People were amazed by large numbers of eggs like these examples: nearly 40 on one 3 stalk plant; 26 eggs on tiny shoots 1-3 inches tall, over 90 eggs on 16 plants, and plants "loaded with eggs, about 8 per sprout."

Students at David Lipscomb Elementary in Nashville, TN saw their first monarch last Wednesday, before the milkweed had appeared in their school garden. "We found milkweed the following Monday. We counted 21 sprouts. Last Thursday it wasn't there," they noticed.

This close timing concerns students at Cub Run Elementary in Cub Run, KY. "There are lots of flowers for a hungry monarch, but no milkweed for the babies. Is that a problem?" they wondered.

Video Clip: Caterpillar Feast

It's amazing to watch a caterpillar eat. It took only 20 minutes for this monarch to consume the leaf he was standing upon. He ate 3 leaves the afternoon of his filming!

Caterpillar Feast

• Which Grows Faster, a Monarch or a Milkweed Plant?

We have been waiting for the egg Ms. Monarch laid on March 12 to become a butterfly. At 8:45 am Yesterday morning Dr. Edson wrote: "No hatching yet, but when I came in this morning the first chrysalis was dark with the orange and black coloration showing through. Based on previous experience we should have an adult butterfly before noon."

• And....at high noon Dr. Edson sent the big news: It's a Girl!

Every year on Earth Day a new monarch generation is replacing the old. What would happen if the earth did not have good habitat right now?

We depend on the earth to deliver the next generation. If not, the monarch’s miraculous life cycle would end in a few short weeks.

Monarch butterflies are not the only ones migrating this spring in search of good nectar. Ruby-throated hummingbirds are traveling now too. How are they similar and how are they different? Compare their life cycles, habitat needs, adaptations and other factors, then use a Venn diagram to organize your thoughts.

• Compare and Contrast: Flower-Powered Migratory Species

"List all of the ways hummingbirds and monarchs are similar, and the ways they are different. Can you name at least one difference that might make their migrations different?"

If a student gained 2,000 times his or her weight, how much would one student weigh? Kids in Ohio, New Jersey, Vermont, and New Hampshire stepped on the scale, did some math and then some research. Here is what one would weigh: as much as an airplane, a humpback whale, 8 great white rhinos, 8 or 9 full grown male elephants, a small hotel, a cruise liner or 34 to 40 Mustang cars!

Do you see two monarchs? >>

We can't track migration without your help!

• Please Report Your Sightings