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.
This famous trickster is one of the most versatile birds in North America—and probably the world. Common Ravens winter north to the Arctic Ocean, summer in hot grasslands, and are increasingly at home in major cities. Audubon’s climate model forecasts little change in winter, but a large in climate space in summer, with only 39% remaining stable, and a substantial drift northward of the range. This result contrasts with what has actually been happening with ravens: expanding slowly southward and to lower elevations. It remains to be seen if ravens are so hardy and adaptable that they may be able to “ignore” changing climate space with relative impunity.
Explore more birds threatened by climate change around the country.
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