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 bald-headed Wood Stork was once almost eliminated from the United States, but since receiving protected status in the early 20th century, numbers have increased dramatically. The species is now quite common in Florida. Audubon's climate model projects a 98 percent of current summer range by 2080. The species is distributed throughout the Neotropics, so replacement from further south may be possible. Interestingly, the model hints at a known annual phenomenon in Texas. That is, every summer, Wood Storks from eastern Mexico fly north after breeding to spend late summer and fall in Texas, before flying back south to winter and breed again.
Explore more birds threatened by climate change around the country.
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