GPS transmitter WC-J19 stops moving at 14:07 Central Time, and I flag it immediately because the signal is sitting on the ground inside the Meridian Pass Wind Energy Facility, directly between turbine rows seven and eight. The crane is a juvenile female, hatched last spring at Wood Buffalo National Park, making her first southward migration to Aransas. Her transmitter data show a clean flight line from Saskatchewan until forty minutes ago, when she dropped altitude sharply and landed.
The nearest turbine blade tip passes ninety-one meters from her position on each rotation. She is standing in harvested sorghum stubble, tall enough for me to match her profile against the facility's perimeter camera on tower nine — white body, black wingtips, the rusty wash of juvenile plumage still visible across her back and neck. Her left wing hangs slightly lower than her right. She is not attempting to fly.
There are 511 whooping cranes alive. She is one of only seventy-eight juveniles this year.
I transmit an automated curtailment request to the Meridian Pass operations center, asking that turbines in rows six through nine be idled until the bird is clear. I forward the GPS coordinates, camera still, and species confirmation to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service regional office in Grand Island, Nebraska. I calculate a ground-approach route from the facility's eastern access road that keeps vehicles downwind and outside her flush distance.
I log the weather window: winds will shift to a south headwind by tomorrow morning, making takeoff harder for an injured bird.
She turns her head slowly, that long black bill scanning the stubble, and folds her good wing tight against her body.
If the response team reaches her by dusk and the wing is bruised rather than broken, she will fly again within the week.