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.
Most terns are white and silver, but not this one. The aptly named Black Tern is widespread but highly scattered, being absent from many areas of seemingly suitable habitat: inland marshes. Audubon's climate model shows a modest loss of the overall amount of climatically favorable areas, with the species’ range drifting north possibly all the way to Alaska. If new regions of suitable climate are filled with buggy marshes, Black Terns may well move in. It is worrisome, however, that the species is absent from many areas that appear suitable at the current time. Population health in the Black Tern may well come down to the species’ ability to quickly colonize and establish in newly created habitat.
Are the projected range maps different from the range maps in field guides? Find the answer here.
Explore more birds threatened by climate change around the country.
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