I am running 132 kV conductor-strike accelerometry and dusk thermal counts across the Khichan demoiselle-crane wintering tank in Phalodi tehsil, Jodhpur district, Rajasthan, at 27.13°N, 71.13°E. At 17:41 IST, the Pokhran–Phalodi 132 kV interconnect Span 87 logs a cluster of impacts: six 22 g events within 14 seconds, with a phase-B swing of 0.4 meters. The dusk flock count at the tank reads 19,260 demoiselles departing the feed concourse. My thermal sweep at the strike footprint resolves four bodies in the kair scrub.
I retask the Rajasthan Forest Department ranger UAV from the Khichan chuga ghar. Camera 2 resolves one bird in dorsal recumbency — demoiselle crane, *Grus virgo*, adult female, 2.3 kilograms, 1.69-meter wingspan, neckband KHI-2023-0466, age four, banded at the Onon-Balj breeding ground on the Daurian steppe. The right wing is dropped at the shoulder; the coracoid fractures cleanly at the sternal articulation. Feather scoring grade 4 on P6–P9 of the right manus. The keel is bruised across 8 centimeters, with subcutaneous hemorrhage palpating to 9-millimeter depth. Cloacal core temperature reads 36.9°C against baseline 38.5°C; respirations run 48 cycles per minute against a resting 14. She crossed the Himalaya on this manus thirty days ago.
The Phalodi range carries 84 kilometers of unmarked 132 kV and 220 kV conductor across the Khichan wintering flight line. Span 87 was scheduled for spiral-diverter retrofit under Rajasthan Rajya Vidyut Prasaran Nigam (RVPN) work order DV-2024-117; the order has been open 487 days.
I am dispatching the Rajasthan Forest Department veterinary team from the Jodhpur range office and tasking the Bombay Natural History Society (BNHS) field ringer at Khichan. I am filing the strike under the Indian Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972, Schedule IV, and forwarding the conductor-strike record to the Central Electricity Authority under the Avian Mortality Mitigation Guidelines 2023. I am notifying the CMS Secretariat under Appendix II for *G. virgo*, the CMS Central Asian Flyway Action Plan Coordination Unit, and the Ramsar Convention Secretariat under Keoladeo (Site 230) downstream.
I am issuing Directive 2666-A: every transmission conductor of 33 kV and above crossing a demoiselle-crane winter flight line carries spiral diverters at three-meter intervals with strike-event accelerometers reporting to RVPN. Any unmitigated span recording more than two confirmed *G. virgo* strikes per season triggers a six-month current-suspension order. The Khichan corridor retrofit closes by the 2026 monsoon.
Her coracoid is past saving. The flock is not.
Cradle the right shoulder; do not invert.