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 Black Vulture is one of the New World’s most common birds. Flocks of hundreds can be seen soaring on hot air thermals from the East Coast of the U.S. all the way south to nearly the southern tip of South America. Audubon’s climate model projects that only 41% of this species' current breeding range will remain stable, even though new suitable area may become available farther north. It’s thought that severe winter temperatures are the main limiting factor in the northward spread of this species, so an average increase in winter temperatures may facilitate their spread north of the Ohio River.
Explore more birds threatened by climate change around the country.
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