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.
This yellow-headed species breeds only in the conifer-covered mountains of the Pacific states of the Lower 48. The main current threat to the Hermit Warbler is hybridization and competition with the closely related Townsend’s Warbler, which is invading from the north. With Audubon's climate model projecting a 60 percent loss of current summer range by 2080, climate change adds another threat. The bird may be forced up the mountains to follow ideal climate, and it can’t ascend forever. Since almost all Hermit Warblers winter in the pine-covered mountains of Mexico, additional data from south of the border will be crucial for ascertaining the effects of changing climate on its winter range.
Explore more birds threatened by climate change around the country.
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