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 largest of the mergansers, the Common Merganser breeds near lakes and riversides both in wooded flatlands (especially boreal forest) and in mountainous areas of the West. Audubon's climate model projects the species will lose 72 percent of its current summer range. Some summer range expansion is also projected, but much of that is where there is now Arctic tundra, though, so unless large trees grow and die there very quickly, the mergansers will be unable to utilize this new area for breeding. There is a noticeable northward shift of the winter range in the east, that may be habitable if climate change keeps water open further north in the future.
Explore more birds threatened by climate change around the country.
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