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 bird, considered a “Florida specialty” by many U.S. birders, in fact ranges widely throughout the Caribbean. The White-crowned Pigeon’s distribution is tightly tied to the availability of tree nuts and fruits; the bird is a frequent “island hopper,” flying from one land mass to another in search of food. Audubon's climate model projects a 63 percent loss of current summer range by 2080, with potential northward gains. The species’ ability to disperse is not in question. The key issue, then, is whether its food resources will be able to track climate change. Movement north in the Florida peninsula is plausible, but establishment much farther afield is unlikely.
Explore more birds threatened by climate change around the country.
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