This article covers a free interactive bird migration map where you can track migrations and seasons. Bird migration is a seasonal moment where many bird breeds migrate from one place to another. Most breeds generally migrate to the north where they breed and raise their offsprings. In the US, most breeds migrate to the north in the fall and migrate back in spring when it’s too cold in the north. Some breeds migrate to other parts of the world as well such as Europe, India, etc.
Journey North is a free website where you can track migration cycles of birds and other animals over different seasons. This website has an interactive Bird Migration Map where you can see the data of bird migration since 1997. You can interact with the map to track seasonal migration cycles and can also play a migration animation of a year. Let’s check it out in details.
Also read: Interactive Map Maker by National Geographic
Interactive Bird Migration Map to Track Migratory Birds, Seasons
When you open the Journey North’s migration maps, it gives you a list of birds and other animals whose migration cycles you can track. You can sort this list by season and year and check the respective migration data. Here, you can check the migration cycles since 1997 for spring and fall.
When you select a bird breed from this list, it opens a map with migration data on it. The map shows a heatmap of the migration cycle for the whole year on a seasonal scale. The migration data is color-coded from the beginning of the season to end. There is an info panel on the right side of the map where you get a slider to see the migration trend throughout the cycle. You can move this slider to check the migration trend for a specific month. You can also change the years to see all the previous migration trends of the selected breed.
From the info panel, you can report a sighting of the bird and can view detailed migration data in tabular form. There is a Play button that shows you an animation of the migration cycle of the whole year.
Give it a try here.
Wrap Up
With Journey North’s interactive maps, you can easily track the migration cycles of various breeds and other species. It gives you all the necessary migration data since 1997 in one place where you can interact with it and check the migration trends. It is good for academic purposes as well as for those who are curious about bird migration cycles.