It’s the time of year when people start wondering when their favorite spring migrants might start arriving. Are my hummingbirds late? When should I put out my feeders? When will the monarchs start arriving? Here are resources to track the progress of your favorite birds and butterflies. At these sites, you can also add your own sightings to increase the data available to others.

Hummingbirds

Hummingbird Central keeps a good map of hummingbird sightings, including species. This website also has lots of information about species, how to attract hummingbirds, feeders, FAQs, and more. I visit Hummingbird Central often this time of year, trying to decide when I should put out my feeders. It’s time! I put my feeders out last week for any males that may be moving north early.

Other Birds

With an account at eBird, you can enter a species name (including hummingbirds) and a range of dates to see where the latest sightings have been. So, if you’re curious about purple martins, wood thrushes or any other migrant birds, you can go there and find out where they’ve been seen. eBird is the most comprehensive birding site online, so it’s a great place to start looking for information on any bird species worldwide. You can help researchers and other members of the public by entering your own sightings, too. eBird links to the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and the Merlin Bird ID app, both of which serve as great resources for identifying birds.

Butterflies

I discovered Journey North searching for monarch butterfly migration maps. They have one of those, plus maps for many other “firsts,” such as first frog song, first earthworm, first robin, and many others. It’s fun to check in on all the different maps, a bit like watching spring unfold in real time for different parts of the country.

Monarch Watch is a site that helps the public tag and release monarch butterflies to help track migrations. If you find or see a tagged monarch, you can report your findings at this website, so the person who tagged the monarch can learn where it ended up or was spotted. The website has loads of information about monarchs, including migration maps (general patterns, not real-time reporting), all things milkweed, and lists of flowers to plant.

Finally, Butterflymigration.org has an app for tracking and entering sightings and data about migrating butterflies worldwide. The primary focus of the website seems to be painted lady butterflies, but many others are included in the app.

These websites are a great way to track and record spring migrants including birds and butterflies.