Our relationship with birds has developed in ways we could have never have imagined, and today they are invaluable in alerting us to our greatest environmental challenge: climate change. As scientists have discovered, there are winners and losers. From seabirds on the Isle of May in Scotland to emperor penguins in Antarctica, climate change can have direct and indirect effects on birds; on their habitat, food supply, reproduction and migration. For some species, like the emperor penguins, time is running out, and their fate and that of the environment is in our hands.

(Photo: Emperor penguins in the Antarctic. Credit: Stephanie Jenouvrier) Show less