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 somber little Palm Warbler is one of the few species of warbler people will regularly see hopping around on their lawns, bobbing their tails as they go. They may appear there both in the winter and during migration. The species nests in spruce bogs, mostly in Canada. During both seasons, Audubon's climate model projects a significant loss of current range by 2080. Potential expansion during the summer is tempered, however, since much of the forecasted new area is on what is now treeless Arctic tundra in Nunavut. The winter range appears likely to undergo a strong northward shift along the east coast and into the Great Lakes region.
Explore more birds threatened by climate change around the country.
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