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.
Before World War II, the House Finch was a bird found only in southwestern U.S. and Mexico (where it is widespread and common). In 1940 it was accidentally introduced to New York City. For a decade or more it was barely established in that area, and then it began to spread. Meanwhile, the native population spread north and east until the two met in the center of the continent. Nowadays, the bird is common in most of the populated portions of North America. Audubon's climate model projects a 69 percent loss of current summer range by 2080. The species is essentially non-migratory in the West, but the introduced eastern population has shown some tendency to migrate, suggesting that the eastern population of species could adapt to changing climate by becoming less sedentary.
Explore more birds threatened by climate change around the country.
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