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.
Numbers of Double-crested Cormorants have increased quite substantially in some parts of North America in recent decades, due to decreased persecution and banning of pesticides like DDT. Audubon’s climate model for this species predicts a significant shift in summer climate space by 2080—only 21% of the core area remains stable, and much of the shifting summer climate spaces moves northward into what is currently the boreal forest of Canada. Cormorants are not boreal forest breeding birds, and it remains to be seen if they are able to adapt to the changing climate.
Explore more birds threatened by climate change around the country.
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