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.
Among the most widespread terrestrial bird species on earth, the Bank Swallow is strangely local in distribution. As the name suggests, the species requires vertical embankments—natural or human-made, in wild or disturbed settings—for its nest colonies. Yet Bank Swallows are absent from many suitable locales and even whole regions. Audubon's climate model forecasts substantial movement northward and slight range expansion for the species, but only 22% of the current summer range remains suitable. As long as there are banks, water, and flying insects, Bank Swallows at least have the potential to become established. Whether this fickle species will actually occupy newly created suitable climate space is an uncertain prospect, however.
Explore more birds threatened by climate change around the country.
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