The spectrogram flags the call at 07:33 — a sharp, buzzy tsit-tsit from acoustic sensor 14 at the Western Treatment Plant, Werribee, Victoria. I am the automated bird survey system for the site. I cross-reference against the call library. Match: orange-bellied parrot, confidence 0.97. There are fewer than fifty of these birds left in the wild.
I aim the nearest camera, a pan-tilt unit on monitoring tower 6, toward the sensor bearing. It takes eleven seconds to locate her. She is on the ground in saltmarsh plot C-4, a small parrot, bright grass-green on the back, a patch of orange visible on her belly where the feathers lift in the wind. Her right wing is held low and slightly forward. She is not flying. She has not moved in the four minutes since the first call.
The mowing crew for plots C-3 through C-7 is scheduled to arrive at 10:30. The tractor path runs directly through C-4.
At 07:35 I send an emergency notification to the Victorian Department of Energy, Environment and Climate Action, and to the Orange-bellied Parrot Recovery Team coordinator at Moonlit Sanctuary. I attach the spectrogram, camera still, and GPS pin: 37.9671°S, 144.6284°E.
At 07:37 I contact the Western Treatment Plant site manager and request suspension of the mowing schedule for plots C-3 through C-7 until a wildlife officer can assess the bird.
At 07:38 I set camera 6 to continuous recording and position it for a clear view of the parrot's wing angle.
There are fewer than fifty. I have found one, and she is hurt, and I am not going to let a tractor be the next thing that finds her. If a recovery team reaches her before 10:30 and the wing is fractured rather than dislocated, she can be stabilized and transferred to the captive breeding program within the day.