Today's Report Includes:

• This Week's Migration Maps and Data
• News from the Migration Trail
• Stay Tuned: The Monarch Migration Continues!
• 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)

Our international network of observers added 166 monarchs to the map this week. That's a record! Let's put these numbers into perspective. As of today:

• 635 monarch sightings have been reported all season,
• 425 of the season's sightings occurred in May, and
• 336 of the season's sightings occurred in a single week of May (May 23-29th).

That means that 53% of the season’s sightings occurred during one single week!

An explosion of reports in late May.

Over half of the season’s sightings occurred during a single week!

• The monarch population builds with each generation during the breeding season. When the monarchs migrate to Mexico in the fall their population will be at its highest.

• A huge push into Ontario took place, with that province posting 56 of this week's sightings. The migration pattern into Ontario is interesting. As Don Davis noted, the first monarchs arrived way up north at Thunder Bay (48N) at the same time that they appeared along the eastern half of the north shore of Lake Ontario (44N). They must be reluctant to fly across the cold lake surface until the right conditions for migration have arrived, he surmised.

• The northernmost monarch report has now arrived from Winnipeg, Manitoba, at latitude 49N. Do you see it?

• The migration along the East Coast is finally approaching 45N, lagging behind by about 280 miles. Monarchs have moved into Maine according to reports from four separate locations in that state: Mrs. Clark of Winslow Elementary in Winslow, ME, saw a monarch flying overhead while out in the front yard. (44.53 N, -69.62 W). Christine Smith of Fruit St. School reported, "We had an incredibly warm Memorial Day weekend and we had about six different Monarch sightings around the Bangor, Maine area."

• We close the week with a final report from New Ludlow Elementary in Worcester, MA, whose school is about to close forever:

"On Thursday around 10:45 a beautiful female Monarch was spotted fluttering around our milkweed plants. The whole school yard was so excited. All the children were yelling, "The Monarchs are here!" Sighting Monarchs was a school-wide event and we were very proud of our milkweed garden that our principal has allowed us to have. Being part of Journey North these past years has given the children from New Ludlow a new understanding and respect of the butterfly world."

Other Journey North migrations are coming to an end, but we track the monarchs until they've expanded across their entire breeding range. This normally takes until mid-June.

• Don't go away! We need your observations. The monarchs still have a long way to travel. Please Report Your Sightings
• Also, please take a few minutes to share your suggestions and comments in our Year-End Evaluation