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.
Cryptic and quiet, the Brown Creeper is easily overlooked in woodlands across the continent. The species is a forest generalist, but with an overall preference for northern and high-elevation woods. Many migrate well south in the winter, but others winter near or within the breeding grounds. Like many other northern forest birds, Audubon’s climate model indicates a significant shift and decrease in summer climate space—only 22% of current range will remain stable, with a concurrent 41% decrease in total summer area available. Suitable winter climate space may spread north into areas occupied by the species only in summer, but those modest gains in winter in the north are predicted to be insufficient in the face of larger losses of suitable climate space from the current summer range.
Explore more birds threatened by climate change around the country.
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