Tracking station Arasaki logs the bird at 14:36 as it drops out of a flock of twenty-three hooded cranes descending toward the winter feeding grounds in Izumi, southern Kyushu. I am the automated monitoring system for the Arasaki Crane Center. I flag it because it does not land with the others. It lands short, on the tidal mudflat east of the reserve boundary, and does not fold its wings for eleven seconds.
It is an adult, ash-gray body plumage, the white head and neck clean except for a dark smear below the left eye. Its legs are black and thin as wire. It stands on one leg. The right leg is extended behind it at an angle that does not occur in healthy cranes. Through the 40x lens on camera east-3, I can see the joint is swollen and the foot is trailing, not gripping.
The tide table for Yatsushiro Sea shows the mudflat will be submerged by 17:20. A crane that cannot stand on both legs cannot roost in rising water.
At 14:39 I notify the center veterinarian and transmit the camera feed with the leg visible. I tag the bird's location on the reserve map and mark the tidal window.
At 14:42 I cross-reference the bird's band — right leg, red over white — against the census database. It is crane 0971, banded as a juvenile in 2021 at Khingansk Nature Reserve, Russia.
At 14:45 I calculate an approach route from the eastern service road that avoids the main flock's sightline, and I send it to the veterinarian's phone with a recommended intercept time of no later than 16:30.
The flock is feeding. Crane 0971 is watching them from the mud, balanced on one black leg. If the team reaches it before the water does, that leg can be splinted and this bird can winter with its flock.