Alastair Bland

Reporter, Audubon Magazine
Alastair Bland is a freelance writer based in Sebastopol, California. He reports on such issues as marine conservation, climate change, rivers and salmon, and agriculture.

Articles by Alastair Bland

A flock of Tricolored Blackbirds alight in a field of tall plants.
Tricolored Blackbirds Once Faced Extinction—Here's What's Behind Their Exciting Comeback
May 30, 2024 — For a decade Audubon California and partners have worked with farmers to delay harvests where the birds nest, solving what was once the biggest threat to the species.
Conservation News
A crow stands on an out-of-focus man-made surface with its beak open, presumably cawing.
Crows Can Count Aloud Much Like Toddlers, New Study Finds
May 28, 2024 — How smart are corvids? We can count the ways—and so can they.
Bird Science
A big blue sky and rows of green trees separated by a smaller strip of dirt, that dirt is slowly flooding.
A California Wetland Program’s Flood of New Funding Lifts Hopes for Shorebirds
March 14, 2024 — With many species rapidly declining along the Pacific Flyway, conservationists and landowners in the Central Valley are creating temporary wetlands where birds need them most.
News
Miles of drying mudflats are shown as waterbirds fly over head in the far distance.
The Great Salt Lake Is Too Big—and Too Important—to Fail
June 21, 2022 — Utah’s leaders and advocates are mobilizing to save the largest saline lake ecosystem in the Western Hemisphere, a haven for people and migrating birds. Time and water are running out.
Field Notes
A Struggling California Marsh Gets an Overhaul to Prepare for Rising Seas
December 17, 2020 — The restoration of the Sonoma Creek in the San Francisco Bay Area not only corrects problems of the past, but also looks to the future.
Climate
In California's Parched Central Valley, Habitat Restoration Lags Promises
October 01, 2020 — To mitigate water diversion projects, state agencies pledge to restore wetlands that birds and fish use. But these projects can take so long to come to fruition that they are sometimes 'double counted.'
News
A Disease Outbreak in California Has Killed an Estimated 40,000 Birds
September 10, 2020 — Avian botulism is a regular issue at the sprawling wetlands of the Klamath Basin Wildlife Refuges, but in a dry and hot year, it's gotten out of control.
Climate
With Monitoring Limited, Someone Drove Through a Snowy Plover Nesting Site
April 01, 2020 — Due to pandemic-related restrictions, vulnerable shorebirds may have to rely on the kindness of strangers this breeding season.
COVID-19
Birders Are Discovering a Secret to Better Big Days—the Bicycle
April 18, 2019 — More people see the allure of pedal power in a car-centric world.
News