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 desert woodpecker is tolerant of various habitat types within its range: broadleaf riparian groves, saguaro “forests,” and urban districts. The species is endangered in California and extirpated from Nevada, but it is worth noting that the species’ presence in those states is peripheral to the core range. Audubon’s climate model projects huge shifts for the Gila Woodpecker, with suitable climate space in summer increasing significantly but shifting radically, with only 23% of summer range remaining stable. Much of the predicted increase in climate space, both in summer and winter, is in geographically unlikely areas of the southeastern United States, and area this species will never be able to colonize.
Explore more birds threatened by climate change around the country.
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