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 series of trills and buzzes, the complex song of the Brewer’s Sparrow can be heard on sage flats and in montane meadows of western North America. Audubon’s climate model predicts a noticeable decline in the summer season: only 24% remains stable, with a decrease of 73% in suitable climate space. One caveat: the Breeding Bird Survey data upon which the summer model is based does not touch on the population of “Timberline” Sparrow, a subspecies of Brewer’s in the Canadian Rockies. This bird is so similar looking, though, that it could be included in some of the winter projections, and most Brewer’s winter in Mexico.
Explore more birds threatened by climate change around the country.
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