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 chick-burr robin-like note of this species’ song signals the spring arrival of this flashy species in the deciduous forests of eastern North America. Like the other members of the genus Piranga, the Scarlet Tanager isn’t really a tropical tanager, but rather, a relative of birds like the Northern Cardinal and the Black-headed Grosbeak. Audubon's climate model projects a major (93 percent) shift in the current summer range and a 26 percent decline in total suitable climate-space. A portion of the “new” suitable space is in the west, where this bird may face stiff competition from its western counterpart, the Western Tanager. As a result, the future may be grimmer for the Scarlet Tanager than depicted by the model. Scarlet Tanagers winter in South America.
Explore more birds threatened by climate change around the country.
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