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.
The ghostly fluttering of the White-tailed Kite is a common sight in open, grassy habitats from California to central Chile. The species has been expanding its range in many areas, including major parts of Mexico and Central America, for several decades, and Audubon's climate model shows continued potential for expansion. However, it also shows a 51 percent loss of current summer range by 2080. The projected suitable climate space along the Atlantic Coast (in the Carolinas, for instance) might offer room for expansion from the recent range gains in Florida.
Explore more birds threatened by climate change around the country.
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