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.
This colorful little falcon is in serious trouble in some parts of the continent. Yet populations are stable or increasing elsewhere. With the American Kestrel and so many other geographically widespread species, it is essential to engage management and conservation on a region-by-region basis. Audubon's climate model forecasts overall winter gains and summer losses for the species, but the bigger story is substantial northward movement of suitable climate space at both times of year. The decline of nesting American Kestrels in the northeastern U.S., well along already, seems likely to proceed, perhaps to the point of regional extirpation in New England and the Mid-Atlantic states.
Explore more birds threatened by climate change around the country.
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