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Flight of the Monarchs.
A year of the monarch butterfly migration, told on a living satellite map.
Flight of the Monarchs follows the butterflies through a full year. Thousands of particles fly across a satellite map while a timeline moves through the seasons, and every chapter opens a small album of field photos.
A year chapter
by chapter.
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Behind the scenes.
Particles, not polygons.
Each butterfly is a moving point on the GPU, so thousands can fly at once and still feel organic.
A real satellite base.
A dark, desaturated satellite map keeps the land readable without competing with the orange flight paths.
Time as the interface.
One timeline controls camera, particles and story. No scrolling, just play & pause.
What we learned.
Motion carries the story better than labels, people followed the migration without reading a legend. Slow particles read as alive, fast ones as noise.
What's next
Reusing the particle layer for other movement data (birds, vessels, whales) and testing a scroll version for mobile.
