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.
Where Pygmy Nuthatches occur, they are impossible to overlook. Despite their tiny stature, they form sizeable flocks that are constantly on the move and always making a fuss. But they are habitat specialists, being restricted to “yellow pine forests” (mainly ponderosa pine and Jeffrey pine) in the West. The spectre of climate change is always of concern for specialized species, and Audubon's climate model indeed forecasts a challenging future for this tiny nuthatch. In both winter and summer, suitable climate space for this species is projected to decline by three quarters as the species is pushed further up the elevational gradient.
Explore more birds threatened by climate change around the country.
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