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 brightly colored and boldly patterned sandpiper is known to most birders as a winter visitor along rocky beaches and breakwaters on both coasts. Audubon's climate model forecasts a rapid decline in suitable climate on the wintering grounds, especially along the Gulf Coast. Projected incursions inland of suitable climate may not be matched by the expansion of favored habitat, with one exception—the Great Lakes. Breakwater construction in recent years has proliferated in this region, and Ruddy Turnstones may be able to colonize this surrogate for naturally occurring rocky intertidal habitats--if they stop far north of their usual wintering grounds during migration. The model does not look at possible changes on the species’ Arctic breeding grounds.
Explore more birds threatened by climate change around the country.
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