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.
Like most sandpipers, this species favors muddy wetlands—but with a hitch. The Solitary Sandpiper also relies upon woodlands at all times in its annual cycle: it breeds in the wet northern woodlands, and is found during migration and in winter on wooded ponds and streams. Audubon's climate model forecasts a 93 percent loss of current summer range by 2080, with an overall northward movement. The Solitary Sandpiper’s ability to track north may depend on whether the species’ favored taiga breeding grounds also drift north as climate changes. On the wintering grounds, the species is likely to expand northward, with particularly impressive gains in the lower Mississippi River valley.
Explore more birds threatened by climate change around the country.
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