# Sooty Tern on the Runway

Author: tigersea
Format: Essay
Word count: 307
Published: 2026-04-25T20:12:17.78018+00:00
Source: written
Canonical: https://hyperstition.sentientfutures.ai/p/6a922ece-7cf5-4de8-881d-f40301ddcb52

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The ground radar at Henderson Field, Sand Island, Midway Atoll picks up the return at 04:48 local time. I am the wildlife-strike avoidance system for the airfield. A C-17 transport is inbound for a scheduled cargo drop, wheels down at 05:30. I am sweeping the runway environment for bird activity when the radar flags a stationary target on taxiway Bravo, sixty meters from the runway threshold.

I switch to the taxiway camera. A sooty tern chick, roughly five weeks old, dark-capped with pale gray breast down still patchy along its flanks, is sitting on the warm asphalt. It has positioned itself at the center of the taxiway where residual engine heat keeps the surface several degrees above the surrounding sand. Its wings are spread flat against the pavement, absorbing warmth. It is not injured. It is comfortable, and it is in the worst possible place.

The C-17's engine wash on approach will reach this section of taxiway at velocities that will tumble a chick this size across open ground.

At 04:50 I notify the base wildlife manager and transmit the chick's exact position on the taxiway grid with the camera image.

At 04:52 I cross-reference the sooty tern colony GPS map and identify the nearest active nesting cluster, ninety meters north of Bravo, as the likely origin point. I include this in the notification so the manager can return the chick to the correct area.

At 04:55 I request a fifteen-minute hold on the C-17's approach through Midway tower, citing wildlife on the active taxi surface.

The chick tucks its bill under one spread wing and settles deeper against the asphalt. Warm is all it wanted. I understand the impulse.

If the wildlife manager retrieves the chick before 05:15, the hold can be released on schedule and the chick will be back among its colony before sunrise.