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.
The life history of this furtive bird is intimately connected with caterpillars. Where there are caterpillar outbreaks, there are Black-billed Cuckoos; where caterpillar numbers are depressed, often because of overzealous pesticide use, these cuckoos are scarce. Audubon’s climate model forecasts a sizeable expansion of suitable summer climate space, extending from current strongholds in the northeastern U.S. and southeastern Canada to much of the present-day boreal forest and taiga biomes. However, only 28% of the current summer range is included for the future. If forest insects, especially moths and butterflies, are able to track north and west with the model’s predictions and if the birds can follow—and those are two big ifs—then the Black-billed Cuckoo may be in for a range expansion.
Explore more birds threatened by climate change around the country.
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