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 Arctic nester is known to most U.S. birders as a widespread migrant inland and fairly common winter visitor along southern shores. Audubon’s climate model shows a rapid shift of wintertime areas with suitable climate, with only 27 percent remaining stable. The transition from coastal to inland habitats would be dramatic, but perhaps it will be able to colonize increasingly ice-free inland lakes, reservoirs, and river edges. Meanwhile, this plover's large, but generally little-known, breeding range is forecast to contract somewhat by century’s end, with losses of areas with suitable climate in the southern portions of the species’ present range.
Explore more birds threatened by climate change around the country.
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