The Extraordinary Travels of a Tagged Monarch Discussion of Journaling Questions In how FEW hours might the monarch have traveled the 210 miles? Since monarchs don?t fly in the dark we counted the daylight hours between the time it was tagged and sunset in Cape May, NJ on Oct. 6th (6:35 pm) and between sunrise on the 7th (7:01 am) and the time it was netted in VA. Then, because monarchs don't fly when it?s too cold, we took away 1.5 hours before sunset and 1.5 hours after sunrise. (Since we don't know the actual temperatures those days, this is just an estimate. Observers say monarchs arrive before sunset and leave after sunrise, when they are warm enough.) Thus, here are the hours we estimate the monarchs could have flown: Date Time Started Time Stopped Elapsed Time Oct. 6 1:00 PM 5:05 PM 4 hours, 5 minutes Oct. 7 8:31 AM 4:56 PM 8 hours, 25 minutes     TOTAL 12 hours, 30 minutes Using the number of hours you calculated above, how many miles per hour might the monarch have traveled, on average?  Dividing 210 miles by 12.5 hours = 16.8 miles per hour. Other Monarch Flight Facts Nobody knows how fast monarchs migrate for certain, but here are other observations to keep in mind: The record flight is 265 miles of a monarch that was tagged one day and recaptured the next day. This monarch was tagged during the Urquhart tagging program. It flew from its tagging site in Waterford, Pennsylvania to a site in Virginia. Dr. Calvert says the monarchs? daily progress is determined largely by the direction and strength of the winds. Strong frontal systems tend to "bunch" them up into discreet pulses. Then, when the winds are northerly and strong, the monarchs may fly as much as 400 miles in a day. Denise Gibbs has observed an interesting pattern of travel between the East Coast monitoring sites: ?Dick Walton would report big ?waves? of monarchs coming through Cape May, New Jersey about 150 miles to our north. It would take 2 days for these waves to reach me at Chincoteague National Wildlife Refuge (suggesting 75 miles/day). I would report big waves to Mark Garland at Kiptopeke, VA which is about 70 miles south of me. He would receive them one day later (suggesting 70 miles/day). This was not a one-time event. It happened time after time over 3 seasons. Usually, but not always, the winds were from the north, northwest, or west-northwest with full sun.? Copyright 2001 Journey North. All Rights Reserved. Please send all questions, comments, and suggestions to our feedback form