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.
Because of its northerly haunts and seafaring ways, this elegant gull is relatively little known to most U.S. birders. The Black-legged Kittiwake breeds in colonies on steep sea cliffs, and then disperses in winter to the open ocean. Audubon’s climate model indicates substantial increases in the amount of suitable climate space for both wintering and breeding populations—but only 8% of the current summer area remains stable. Additionally, these projections need to be tempered by two realities of the species’ natural history: its pelagic habits in winter and its specialized island cliff-nesting habitats in summer. Major incursions inland, even where suitable climate exists, seem impossible.
Explore more birds threatened by climate change around the country.
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