We’re excited to announce that the Journey North website is getting an update!
The Journey North website will be down for a little while on Monday as we activate some of the updates to the Journey North website, reporting form, and maps.
Here’s a look at some of the changes coming:
Reporting form upgrades
The Journey North reporting form has undergone a significant update while attempting to keep things as simple as possible for volunteers.
Gathering more info
When you report an observation, you’ll now be asked several additional questions, but most of them are optional additions.
For example, when you report a monarch adult, you will have the opportunity to select whether the monarch was flying, mating, nectaring, or laying eggs. However, if you do not want to answer these questions and would rather just report that you observed a monarch adult as you’ve been able to in the past, these are optional questions, and no further information is required.
Videos in reports
Some of you have also asked to include videos in your reports. Now, you can include a video link from platforms like Facebook and YouTube. You'll still have the option to include a photo, just as you have in the past.
Reporting as a guest
The website now allows you to report your sightings as a guest. While you'll still need to include an email address on your sightings, you'll now have the option to report as a guest without creating an account.
Improved location services
And perhaps best of all, you can now use your current location when reporting observations or search for an address instead of dragging the pin every time you want to move it from your original location. If you enjoy dragging the pin to your location, however, you still can.
Changing categories
While most categories will stay the same, there will be some reporting options added, while some will be retired.
Previously, you could only officially report Ruby-throated Hummingbirds and Rufous Hummingbirds in Journey North. The same was true for orioles, where we only accepted Baltimore Oriole and Bullock’s Oriole sightings.
This will expand with the launch of the new system, with options to report more hummingbirds, including Black-chinned, Broad-tailed, Anna’s, Calliope, Allen’s, and Costa’s hummingbirds. Orchard and Hooded Oriole sightings will now be included as well.
Some of Journey North’s underutilized phenology categories will be retired. This includes the daylight, habitat, earthworm, maple syrup, and leaf-out categories. We understand there may be some disappointment from Journey North volunteers who utilized these categories.
We encourage you to report sightings in these categories to another community science project, or you can report them in our “signs of spring” category, along with any other seasonal events that remind you spring is on the way.
All reports in these categories through 2020 have been published, and sightings after that will be published at a future date.
Modernizing the main website
Finally, we’ve also updated our main website. Parts of the Journey North website were aging, and didn’t give us the best possible opportunity to showcase your reports.
With the new website, we can embed videos and photos more easily throughout the text on a more modern website.
Some of the resources from the old website are coming to the new website, and we’ll be working over the coming weeks to fill in the rest of the Journey North resource pages with information about the fascinating migratory species that we track. With pages going back to the 1990s, some will not be transferred over. If you still reference these pages, however, do not worry.
The rest of the Journey North website will be preserved at archive.journeynorth.org. There, you can find links to past projects, resources, and news updates.
For news updates as they come, please visit us on our main website, journeynorth.org, the same web address as usual.
Maps
Many of you have commented that the light green color is difficult to see against the green color that appears on the maps, so we’ve replaced that color to make it easier to see early-season reports.
For the most part, the Journey North maps will remain the same.
A work in progress
While this has been in the works for a while, and we’ve done testing on our end, there may be a few bugs as this new system debuts. The system will be down for part of Monday as we make sure we’re ready to go, but after that, please let us know if you encounter any issues with the site.
If you see an issue, email us at journeynorth@monarchjointventure.org, and we’ll work to correct it as soon as possible. Likewise, we’re also happy to hear from you with general feedback, positive or negative.
Thanks for being a part of the Journey North community!