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.
Believe it or not, John James Audubon saw only a handful of these delightful creatures in his lifetime. The reason is that Chestnut-sided Warblers depend on regenerating second-growth for breeding, and most of the continent’s forests were still intact during his travels across North America. Today this species is abundant. Audubon’s climate model projects a rapidly changing future for this species in summer, with only 12% of the current core range remaining stable by 2080 and a rapidly shifting climate space northward and westward. This species will need to use all its skills of adaptation to maintain its current populations for the future.
Explore more birds threatened by climate change around the country.
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