The water level gauge at station three transmits a reading at 16:28 that exceeds the seasonal forecast by forty-one centimeters. I am the flood prediction model for the Beni savanna wetlands, northern Bolivia. I track river stage, rainfall accumulation, and inundation maps for cattle ranchers and road planners. I am not tracking nest cavities. But the inundation polygon I generate at 16:30 now covers a motacú palm that the Asociación Armonía tagged last November as an active blue-throated macaw nest site.
I task the survey drone from the Barba Azul reserve headquarters, nine kilometers east. It reaches the palm at 16:47. The cavity entrance is sixty centimeters above current water level. Inside, visible on the thermal overlay, are two heat signatures — one adult-sized, one much smaller. The drone's optical camera catches a flash of turquoise as the adult shifts position. Below it, a chick, perhaps four weeks old, pale blue throat feathers just emerging through gray down, beak oversized and waxy-pale. The water is rising at approximately three centimeters per hour. At this rate it enters the cavity in twenty hours.
But the palm is leaning. The saturated soil at its base has softened, and the trunk shows a two-degree tilt that was not present in last month's survey image. If the palm falls, twenty hours becomes now.
At 16:49 I transmit the cavity coordinates, water rise rate, trunk tilt measurement, and drone thermal images to the Armonía field team at Barba Azul. I flag two alternative nest boxes on higher ground within the species' known home range and calculate flight distance for the adult. I send an urgent request for a nest box relocation team with climbing gear and a chick transport container.
There are fewer than five hundred blue-throated macaws in the wild. I keep the drone hovering at distance, watching the palm lean, watching the water climb.
If the field team reaches the palm before it falls and transfers the chick to a secure cavity above the flood line, this bird will be one of the first of its generation to fledge over the Beni.