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 gorgeous species is being steadily replaced by the more aggressive and genetically dominant Blue-winged Warbler. The two species readily hybridize where they come into contact on the breeding grounds, producing the striking Brewster’s Warbler and Lawrence’s Warbler hybrids. Audubon’s climate model projects the summer range to shift entirely out of its current breeding range, with none of the current range in proper climate space by 2080. Summer range is also projected to increase in size by more than twofold; thankfully this species specializes in second-growth habitats, so it doesn’t take long for appropriate habitat to become established and hopefully the Golden-winged Warbler will be able to move with the climate space. The species winters in the mountains of Central America.
Are the projected range maps different from the range maps in field guides? Find the answer here.
Explore more birds threatened by climate change around the country.
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