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.
A member of the diving duck group, but one that prefers very shallow waters, the Redhead appears to have problems on the horizon. Audubon's climate model suggests that the main summer range on the northern prairies is likely to contract sharply, decreasing by 79 percent by 2080, with very little expansion into new areas. Total available wintering area is predicted to increase modestly, but total area doesn’t translate directly to total numbers. Currently, a very high percentage of the world’s Redhead population winters on the Laguna Madre in coastal southern Texas and northeast Mexico, with only small numbers scattered elsewhere. Even a small rise in sea level could have a major impact on the Laguna Madre, possibly forcing these ducks to take advantage of the projected new wintering areas.
Explore more birds threatened by climate change around the country.
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