It seems like they’ll always be there: The birds that wake us from our slumber, gleefully providing the soundtrack of our daily lives. Yet science tells us that many of them are facing a sustained decline—and others are facing a climate crisis that could silence them forever.

Here’s the good news: A new giving challenge now amplifies the impact of your gift by helping to unlock $10,000 in additional support for the birds we love thanks to a generous group of donors. But this opportunity is only good until midnight tomorrow, so please don’t wait: Make your monthly gift today to protect birds and their habitats.

The disappearance of our beloved backyard birds is just one aspect of a larger crisis in motion. We’ve lost 3 billion birds since 1970—and currently, climate change poses an existential threat to two in three North American bird species.

This is a code-red crisis for birds—even familiar favorites like the Rufous Hummingbird. In 2010 our Common Birds in Decline report noted that Rufous populations had fallen by more than half in the past 40 years, from 12 million to 5 million birds. And as the changing climate affects the flowers it visits for nectar, with 3 degrees Celsius of warming, this common western species could see its current summer range shrink by 70 percent and its winter range by half.

But just as science reveals the scale of the bird emergency, it offers a way forward. For more than a century, Audubon’s rigorous science has identified which birds are threatened, which habitats are most in need of protection, and which birds will most benefit from our efforts.

Those findings guide our work on their behalf: restoring and protecting intact forests, promoting plants for birds, advocating for bird-friendly buildings, and more.

But our best efforts depend on you. Please start your dependable gift right away and be one of the 100 new monthly donors we need to unlock an additional $10,000 for birds before midnight tomorrow.

Sincerely,

National Audubon Society