Today's Report Includes:

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

Monarchs have arrived at 45 degrees N! Sightings are still at a low, but this week brings a handful more. Iowa is now on the map. Some monarchs reported in good shape, others are faded from long journeys north. Will the monarchs flood northward in the next two weeks? Will the milkweed be ready for the females to lay their eggs? Come back next week for a full report.

Some highlights of the week:

• Monarchs now sighted above 45 N. Find Door Peninsula, WI where 2 sighting reports came in this week. Will the winds over Lake Michigan send these monarchs into the MI Upper Peninsula next?

  Baileys Harbor (Door Peninsula), WI 05/15/06:
  “ My husband just spotted a female Monarch visiting the Dandelions in our meadow---the only plant blooming. This is way too early to have the Monarchs arrive here. There are no milkweed plants even emerging from the soil. We know, because that's what we were looking for this afternoon. I did, however, purchase four Blood-Flower Asclepias curassavica plants and placed them now in different locations outside. I hope she finds them.”
  

• Each report we receive is carefully screened so we keep an accurate representation of the migration. When this early report came in from Northfield, MN, we wrote the observer to confirm. The detailed reply convinced us of the report’s validity. It also didn’t hurt that the observer has worked with monarchs since she was a 1-year old and is the daughter of monarch researcher, Karen Oberhauser!

  Northfield, MN 05/16/06:
  “ Single monarch of unknown sex flying along side country road. I am completely sure that the butterfly that I saw was a monarch. I was on a bike ride, and so didn't have a camera with me to get a picture. There is milkweed up here in Northfield, and it has been up for several weeks. The biggest plants are about a foot tall. The butterfly was too orange to be painted lady, too big to be a viceroy, and had rounded hind wings instead of the tailed wings of a swallowtail. I was close enough to see the black vein patterns and borders. I have done quite a lot of work with monarchs in my life (my mom studies them at the U of M) and I'm sure that the butterfly I saw was a monarch. A fast flying one, but definitely a monarch.”
  

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.

The Monarch's Breeding Range in North America
(Stippled areas show regions of uncertainty.) >>

Even if monarchs have already been reported from your state or province, we still want to hear from YOU when you see YOUR first monarch. The number of sightings reported reflects monarch abundance, so your observations will continue to be important.

• We can't track migration without your help! Please Report Your Sightings

Journey North
Year End Evaluation

Please share your thoughts!