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.
Formerly considered as one species, the large rails of this type in the west are now called Ridgway’s Rails, while the ones in the east are still called Clapper Rails. The latter reside in salt marshes, so while Audubon’s climate model projects more suitable climatic space may be available inland, the Clapper Rail won’t likely utilize most of it and will be restricted to expanding northward along the coast. The main concern for the Clapper Rail is sea level rise, which could inundate the coastal marshes it now lives in. Ridgway’s Rail, on the other hand, is partially migratory and can nest in freshwater marshes, so it may be able to expand inland in the Colorado River drainage—if there is enough water to spare for wetland management.
Explore more birds threatened by climate change around the country.
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