The Animated Map of Bird Migrations

The Bird Migration Map 2018 is an animated visualization of the mass movement of bird migrations across Europe during the whole of 2018. Using the map you can explore the movements of millions of birds over Europe over the course of one whole year.

On the map scaled arrows are used to show the direction and speed of birds migrating across Europe, flying south for the winter and north for the summer. The colored squares on the map show the density of migrating birds. Along the bottom of the map is a timeline which allows you to explore the migratory data by date or to view an animation of Europe's bird migration over the whole of 2018.If you click on a location on the map you can view data on the current values of density and flight speed.

The data for the map comes from the European weather radar network. This network consist of 37 weather radars in France, Germany, the Netherlands and Belgium. The data reveals the flights of migratory birds between 13 February 2018 and 1 January 2019. Using the weather radar data it is possible to collect vertical profiles of bird density, flight speed and flight direction. The 37 weather radars provide point observations so interpolations are made to calculate the movement and density of the bird migrations between the stations.