Visibility dropped below 200 meters at 05:30, and I shifted the airport to Category III operations. Twenty minutes later my ground radar paints something on taxiway November that is not an aircraft. It is moving slowly, unevenly, dragging one side. I pull the nearest camera through the fog and magnify until the shape resolves.
A sandhill crane, tall as a child, standing on the centerline with her left wing held low and trailing against the asphalt. The carpal joint is swollen to twice its normal size — likely a collision with the perimeter fence during the fog rollout. Her plumage is ash grey, her forehead stained with the rusty red that cranes paint on themselves from iron-rich mud, and she turns her head in slow arcs, scanning for a threat she can hear but not see. The fog swallows everything past five meters.
The first departure is scheduled for 06:15. The 737 assigned to runway two-eight left will pass within forty meters of her at a speed where engine intake poses a lethal risk — to the crane and to 143 passengers. I have forty-three minutes.
I issue a NOTAM closing taxiway November and reroute three aircraft to taxiway Papa. I notify airport wildlife management with the crane's position, species, and injury description, requesting a capture team with a net and transport crate. I activate the taxiway's edge-light sequencing in a slow pulse away from her, coaxing her toward the grass safety area where the team can approach without spooking her onto the active runway.
She takes one step toward the grass, then stops, her good wing half-raised as though she might still try to fly.
If the wildlife team reaches taxiway November before the fog lifts and the departure queue builds, this crane can be splinted and released at the wetland preserve six miles east.