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.
According to Audubon's climate model, this charismatic duck is projected to lose 75 percent of its current summer range by 2080, with no potential for expansion. During the winter, however, a strong northward push is predicted, with the species largely blanketing the lower 48 by 2080. As a bird of open wetlands, how climate change will impact rainfall across the summer breeding grounds is a big concern.
This dabbling duck is widespread in the Northern Hemisphere, breeding across Europe and Asia as well as North America, and wintering south into the tropics around the world. In North America its main breeding areas are from Alaska south through western Canada and much of the western United States, with more localized populations in the eastern part of the continent. A denizen of shallow marshes, the shoveler is often seen swimming forward with its big, spatulate bill partly submerged in the muddy soup. Its bill is adapted for straining tiny crustaceans, insects, and seeds from the water. Although shovelers look heavy-bodied, they are good fliers; at large gatherings during migration or winter, small groups of these ducks are often seen taking off, circling the area, and then landing again, for no apparent reason.
Explore more birds threatened by climate change around the country.
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