Each map is a visual guide to where a particular bird species may find the climate conditions it needs to survive in the future. We call this the bird’s “climatic range.”
The colors indicate the season in which the bird may find suitable conditions— blue for winter, yellow for summer (breeding), and green for where they overlap (indicating their presence year-round).
The darker the shaded area, the more likely it is the bird species will find suitable climate conditions to survive there.
The outline of the approximate current range for each season remains fixed in each frame, allowing you to compare how the range will expand, contract, or shift in the future.
The first frame of the animation shows where the bird can find a suitable climate today (based on data from 2000). The next three frames predict where this bird’s suitable climate may shift in the future—one frame each for 2020, 2050, and 2080.
You can play or pause the animation with the orange button in the lower left, or select an individual frame to study by clicking on its year.
A stunning shorebird with a long upturned bill, the American Avocet prefers hot, open environments in shallow fresh and saltwater marshes. Audubon's climate model projects that its core nesting areas, widely scattered in the West but centered chiefly in the northern Great Plains, may contract drastically. Areas of suitable climate in winter, currently concentrated in the southern U.S., are forecast to shift northward somewhat and to increase overall. The American Avocet is a species that already benefits from active management of wetlands, and it seems likely that climate change will necessitate additional intervention by wildlife managers, especially on the breeding grounds.
Explore more birds threatened by climate change around the country.
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