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.
At first glance, a male Gadwall is a rather dull bird, but look closely and you’ll see incredibly intricate patterns of black, gray, and white. Audubon's climate model’s future projection for the Gadwall is similarly dual in nature. While its winter range is projected to be largely stable and potentially increasing (by 27 percent), 91 percent of the species’ summer range is projected to disappear. The total amount of available space is projected to atrophy by a potentially catastrophic 87 percent. If there’s any hope for the Gadwall, it’s that this is a numerous and widespread species, with many thousands (if not millions) also living in the Old World.
Explore more birds threatened by climate change around the country.
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