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.
The Gray-crowned Rosy-Finch is a variable species that breeds in varied (but always open and treeless) habitats. Some highly migratory populations nest on alpine tundra, while other resident populations nest on rocky shorelines on islands in the Bering Sea. Audubon's climate model projects a substantial decline of 69% in suitable climate space for wintering and a major shift in current range; only 13% of it is stable. Because of its relatively inaccessible breeding range and the scarcity of summer data, the model makes no projections for that season; but as with other mountaintop birds, there is reason for concern as the climate warms.
Explore more birds threatened by climate change around the country.
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