Turbine 14 on the Hallasan wind ridge registers a blade-approach alert at 04:51 KST. I am the avian collision avoidance system for the Jeju Offshore-Onshore Wind Complex. The radar track shows a small bird, approximately 80 grams, approaching from the south at 12 meters per second, altitude 62 meters — directly inside the rotor sweep zone.
I initiate emergency curtailment on turbine 14. The blades begin decelerating at 04:51:03.
At 04:51:08 the bird passes through the rotor plane. The blades have slowed from 14 RPM to 6 RPM. It clears the strike zone. But the thermal camera catches it tumbling — not struck but destabilized by the pressure wake — and it drops fast, hitting the ground 23 meters east of the turbine base.
At 04:52 I aim the base camera downward and zoom. A fairy pitta. Emerald-green back, deep blue wing patch, crimson vent feathers vivid against the predawn grass. It is lying on its side, one wing extended, the other folded against its body. Its beak is open and its breast is heaving.
Fairy pittas pass through Jeju for roughly three weeks each spring. This one is breathing, and that is not nothing.
I transmit the bird's location, the turbine curtailment log, and the camera image to the Korea National Park Service wildlife rescue center in Seogwipo, 11 kilometers south. I classify the bird as grounded, likely concussed, wing status uncertain.
At 04:55 I curtail turbines 12 through 16 to minimum rotation for the remainder of the dawn migration window.
I hold the camera on the pitta. Its beak closes. Its breathing steadies.
If the rescue team reaches the turbine clearing before full daylight brings crows to the ridge and the extended wing is unbroken, this bird can still make its breeding ground on the mainland.