Today's Report Includes:

• This Week's Migration Maps and Data
• News from the Migration Trail
• First Monarchs Cross into Canada!
• How Far North Did the Monarchs from Mexico Go?
• How Long Do the Monarchs from Mexico Live?
• Challenge Question #14
• Symbolic Monarch Butterfly Migration Map: Online Lost and Found
• Wanted: Your Monarch and Milkweed Sightings
• Year-End Evaluation: Please Share Your Thoughts!

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

• Migration Map (and link to Real-time Map)
• Migration Data for Classroom Mapping
• Week-to-week Animation
• Year-to-year Animation (2005 vs. 2006)

This is the time of year when things get quiet. Only two monarchs have been reported since the first of May. By the end of April, the migration's leading edge had nearly reached 42N and the first butterflies had crossed into Canada!

Here are some highlights:

• Monarch biologist Dr. Lincoln Brower saw his first monarch of the spring in his butterfly garden at his home in the mountains of Virginia. Imagine seeing monarchs in Mexico just a few weeks earlier, and then having one greet you in your own backyard. So began another year of his life-long study of these amazing creatures.
• An interesting thought occurred to Mrs. Gayle Steffy this week when she found 47 monarch eggs along the railroad tracks. "It appears that the female followed the tracks, laying along the way. A line of flowering crabapple trees also runs parallel to the tracks, and that may have attracted her initially," she said. This observation is a good reminder that monarchs need habitat all the way from Mexico. Did you ever picture railroad tracks as a migration trail?
• Check out the sighting on the map this week from Arizona. Where do you suppose that monarch came from? We rarely receive reports from that state.

"Faded, worn, migrating monarchs were seen in Point Pelee National Park during the last week of April," wrote Don Davis from Toronto.

The first-hand observations were made by Mr. Alan Wormington:

"Here at Point Pelee on Lake Erie (Ontario), we have seen several Monarchs this past week, all of which have been very worn. This is typical condition of any that we ever see here during the period of late April to mid-May; such individuals are sometimes seen into late May and early June." Most years they don't see their first Monarch until May 8-12, on average, he added.

Today's migration map probably shows how far the monarchs from Mexico will travel this year. Each year by the first week of May, most of the millions of monarchs that spent the winter in Mexico have died.

• Measure the distance of the monarch that is farthest north from Mexico. How far did it fly?

  Keep in mind, of course, that we don't know whether monarchs in the east are actually coming from Mexico!
  

Monarchs live for only 2-6 weeks during the breeding season. But those that migrate to Mexico and back live much longer. Most began their lives late last summer, when you came back to school. Consider this:

Challenge Question #14
"Assume a monarch emerged as an adult at the end of last summer, on August 25th. As of April 25th, how long had the butterfly been alive?"

• To respond to this Challenge Question, please follow these instructions

Photo: Jim Edson

Late April
Torn, tattered and faded

Children across North America are united by monarch butterflies.

Nearly 3,000 Symbolic Monarchs are now on the map. Can you find yours?

• Symbolic Monarch Butterfly Migration Map

We can't track migration without your help!

• Please Report Your Sightings

Journey North
Year End Evaluation

Please share your thoughts!