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 former species was split into Bell’s Sparrow and Sagebrush Sparrow in 2013. There are two forms of Bell’s Sparrow: one that breeds in coastal-slope chaparral and one (“Mojave Sparrow”) that breeds on inland flats centered on the Mojave Desert. When the three forms are combined, Audubon's climate model predicts a significant decrease (of 65 percent) and shift in summer range (of 88 percent). Specifically, the range of “Mojave Sparrow” appears to be completely lost—probably very bad news for this population. The model projects a largely stable and potentially expanding winter climate space for the three populations.
Explore more birds threatened by climate change around the country.
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