• Highlights from the Migration Trail
  • Latest migration maps
  • Comments from observers
  • Migration rate math: Who saw the strongest migration this week?
• This Week: What Does the Map Reveal About Migration?
• Teachers' Guide

Look-There's a monarch!
Quinlan, TX >>

Latest Migration Maps

• Click maps for interactive maps and to read the observer's comments.
• Make Your Own Map in the classroom! >>
• Also See: Week-by-week Migration Animation >>

People reported migrating monarchs from points across the monarch’s range this week! In the north, observers are surprised to see so many monarchs so late; people as far south as Texas say numbers are beginning to build; and the first sightings are starting to arrive from northern Mexico! Here are some of the week’s highlights: >>

9/28/06 Rule, TX (33. 19 N, -99.90 W)
"At our house we counted 63 monarchs. I was so excited. We had been watching for a whole month and only seeing 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 9,” said the 2nd grade scientist.

9/29/06 Sweetwater, TX (32.50 N, -100.30 W)
The first spectacular roost was reported in Sweetwater, TX and estimated to include as many as 40,000 butterflies. “I checked for their arrival last night (9/28/06) at 7:00 pm, and saw about 300 early arrivals. By 5:00 pm today, the trees and grass were literally filled.”

9/30/06 Arlington, TX (32.64 N, -97.17 W)
"Large numbers have not shown up yet, but the front runners are here,” reports Julie Burgen.

9/29/06 Pottsville, AR (35.21 N, -93.05 W)
A clear wave of monarchs moved into northern Arkansas last Friday and Mr. Roberts Earth Science students documented its arrival. Where they had been seeing only 3-8 per hour all week they suddenly saw 138!

10/2/06 Harrisburg, AR (35.57 N, -90.71 W)
Around 9:00 am, my class counted 6 Monarchs flying past our weather station during our weather observations. Later in the afternoon, I received a report from my mother in Wynne, AR (about 20 miles south) that her pecan tree limbs were loaded with hundreds of Monarchs around 11:00 am.

Eastern region:
Let's check in with the two monitoring sites on the Atlantic Coast:

10/5/06 Cape May, New Jersey
The Monarch Monitoring Project counted an average of 624 monarchs/hour during the past week. Are numbers up or down from the week before? Take a look. >>

10/2/06 Assateague Island, Virginia
The biggest day yet, reported Denise Gibbs of the Chincoteague Monarch Monitoring Project: “Monarchs migrated down the island by about 1,300 per hour for most of today. It was quite a show!" >>

Migration Rate Math

Here is this week's collection of quantifiable monarch observations, and background materials:

• Who saw the strongest migration this week?

• See Lesson: Migration Rate Math
  

Resting in Sweetwater, TX. Only 796 more miles to travel!

And from the Monarch's winter home in Mexico:

No sight of them yet...>>

Angangueo, Michoacan (19 N, -100 W)