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.
Where there are sufficiently dense woodlands—it doesn’t really matter what type—in the far west, this distinctively greenish bird is likely to be found. Audubon’s climate model projection shows the potential for remarkable range shifts in both summer and winter, with over half of the current suitable climate space in summer shifting by 2080. Although surprising, the prediction of suitable climate in peninsular Florida could be a sign of things to come. There are winter records of this migratory flycatcher far from the Pacific slope, and it is conceivable that a few enterprising individuals could start a trend.
Explore more birds threatened by climate change around the country.
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