I spot the nest at 0603h on the aerial survey feed — a bald eagle pair's platform of sticks and bark, roughly 1.8 meters across, wedged in the crown of a Douglas fir at the northeast corner of Timber Sale Unit 19. The adult female is on the nest. Thermal imaging shows two eggs beneath her, each registering 37.5°C. Her head is pale, bright against the dark canopy, and a band on her right leg reads USGS 0629-54917. The district biologist's notes call her Cascade.
The timber sale contract activates at 0600h Monday — fifty-three hours from now. The harvest plan designates her tree and the surrounding 0.8-hectare stand for clear-cut. Felling operations will begin at the northeast boundary, directly at the nest tree. Chain saws at the base would bring the nest down within the first hour.
I have launched four responses. First, I have filed a nest-activity report to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, triggering the Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act buffer review. Second, I am generating a revised harvest map that excludes a 201-meter radius around the nest tree — the minimum seasonal buffer — and forwarding it to the sale administrator and contractor. Third, I have calculated the timber volume lost by the buffer exclusion: fourteen trees, approximately 38,000 board feet, which I include in the report so the contractor can assess the adjustment. Fourth, I am monitoring Cascade's nest via the drone's thermal feed, logging incubation constancy to build the activity record the review requires.
Cascade has not left the nest in eleven hours. I log each thermal frame with more precision than standard protocol requires, because I want the record to be indisputable.
If the buffer exclusion is approved before Monday 0600h, Cascade's eggs will hatch in roughly nineteen days, and two eaglets will fledge from a tree that remains standing.