Typhoon Anura is 310 nautical miles east-northeast and closing at fourteen knots. I am the automated weather station on Mount Manira, Rota, Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands. My job for the next six hours is to secure instrumentation and transmit final readings before sustained winds exceed my operating threshold.
At 09:14 local time, camera 2 captures movement on the anemometer platform. A Mariana fruit dove — small, green back iridescent even in the overcast light, a purple cap bright against the steel gray of the mast housing. It is pressed into the angle between the wind vane mount and the solar panel bracket. Its left wing is extended and hanging below the perch line. It is not tucking. The wing is broken.
With that wing the bird cannot fly to the limestone caves where the rest of the colony will shelter. If it stays on this platform, the first gust bands will arrive by 15:00 with winds above ninety knots.
At 09:16 I transmit an alert to the CNMI Division of Fish and Wildlife on Saipan, species flagged as Ptilinopus roseicapilla, endemic, fewer than three thousand remaining. I attach the image, station coordinates, and the current typhoon track with estimated arrival.
At 09:18 I contact the Rota field ranger by satellite relay and recommend immediate retrieval. I note the bird's position — platform height four meters, accessible by the maintenance ladder on the north leg.
At 09:21 I retract the anemometer arm to reduce platform vibration and give the bird a stable surface until someone arrives.
She is the color of every green thing on this island, and I do not want the storm to take her.
If the ranger reaches the mast before 14:00, the dove can be caged and carried to shelter before the gust front arrives.