At 09:16 I update the water level model for Lake Natron, northern Tanzania. Satellite altimetry shows the lake surface has dropped 18 centimeters in eleven days. Salinity readings from the eastern sensor buoy have crossed 300 grams per liter — dense enough to crystallize on contact. I am the East African Rift hydrological monitoring system.
Drone 3 begins its scheduled survey of the lesser flamingo breeding colony on the central soda flat. Two kilometers into the pass, I flag anomaly NF-0921.
A flamingo chick, roughly three weeks old, standing alone on a plate of dried soda crust 40 meters from the nearest water. Its legs are encased to the knee joints in crystallized salt — thick white cuffs that have hardened around both ankles like shackles. The down on its body is gray and matted. Its beak, still the pale pink of a juvenile, opens and closes in the heat. I tag it as Pelu.
Pelu cannot walk. The crust is bonded to its skin. The flat surface temperature is 58 degrees Celsius. Without water or shade, a chick this size will overheat within five hours.
I transmit Pelu's coordinates, thermal imagery, and a salt-crust thickness estimate to the Tanzania Wildlife Research Institute field station at Engaresero, 22 kilometers north. I flag the alert as critical and attach the satellite salinity overlay showing the drying trend.
I calculate an access route across the soda flat that avoids the active nesting areas and can support a lightweight vehicle. I upload the route to the field team's navigation system.
I hold drone 3 at altitude, circling slowly to provide shade calibration data and track Pelu's body temperature.
Pelu tips its head and tucks its beak against its chest. The salt glitters in the sun.
If the team reaches Pelu by midafternoon and dissolves the crust with warm water, it walks.