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.
The range-limited White-headed Woodpecker is a permanent resident of the “yellow pine” forests (mainly ponderosa and Jeffrey pines) in the far west. It is mainly herbivorous in winter, depending heavily on conifer seeds. Occurrences even a few miles from the preferred habitat are noteworthy. Audubon's climate model forecasts a 100 percent loss of current summer range and a 75 loss of current winter range by 2080. Movement to new habitats may not be an option for this specialist species, seemingly hardwired to its pinewood haunts. The species is already at risk because of unwise logging and fire-suppression practices, and climate change may worsen the prospects for this distinctive western forest denizen.
Explore more birds threatened by climate change around the country.
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