Updated Mar 22, 2026 • ~4 min read
Chapter 1: She Counted Twice
WILLA
She drove the coast road in October rain with her monitoring equipment in the back of the truck and the federal database open on her phone on the passenger seat, which was not safe but which was how she drove when she was thinking about the numbers.
The numbers were: forty-one bald eagles, per the Pacific Northwest Raptor Survey’s regional database, resident population at the cliff community designated survey point 7-C on the Washington coast. Forty-one was the figure the database had been returning for six consecutive survey seasons, which was the kind of stability that either indicated a healthy, established population or indicated that someone had been entering the same number for six years without re-counting.
She was going to re-count.
The coast road was exactly what the mapping had suggested: narrow, intermittently paved, the kind of road that was maintained by the county with the philosophy that if you needed the road you already knew about it. It ran north along the cliff line for eleven miles before the community appeared — a small cluster of structures on a headland above the sea, a lighthouse at the point, the research cottage the federal survey program maintained for visiting researchers at the landward edge.
She pulled up to the cottage at four in the afternoon. The rain was doing what Washington coast October rain did: not coming down, being present, the specific quality of continuous mist that turned the cliff edge and the sea beyond it into a series of receding grey planes.
She unpacked systematically: monitoring equipment first, personal gear second. She opened the research cottage’s birdwatching log — required under the survey protocol — and wrote: *4:12 p.m. Arrival. Conditions: marine layer, 14°C, wind 12 knots SW.*
Then she went outside with her binoculars.
Within the first hour she counted thirty-seven.
She counted again.
Thirty-seven.
She lowered the binoculars and looked at the cliff face — the section of the headland visible from the research cottage, the outer face that dropped to the sea — and thought about the federal database’s forty-one.
Thirty-seven was not forty-one. The discrepancy could be explained by weather — some of the population could be sheltering, could be hunting offshore, could be in sections of the cliff she couldn’t see from the cottage. The discrepancy could also indicate a population that was smaller than the database suggested, which would make the six-year stability figure significantly more interesting.
She wrote in the field notebook: *Day 1, 4:12–5:08 p.m. East cliff face survey from cottage position. Count: 37 individuals. Database figure: 41. Discrepancy: -4. Explanations: (a) partial visibility from cottage position, (b) offshore activity, (c) database figure inaccurate.* She paused. *(d) population change not reflected in annual returns.*
She wrote: *Confirm full cliff coverage before drawing conclusions.*
She made tea, reviewed the survey protocol documentation, and checked the weather forecast for the week. Clear by Thursday. She could run the outer cliff survey in good conditions by Friday at the latest.
She also checked: the access notes in the survey protocol package, which mentioned that the community maintained a coastal liaison for visiting researchers, one Finn Ashwood, who could provide access to the outer headland sections.
She looked up the community’s contact information.
She wrote a brief, professional message to the liaison contact: arrival confirmed, requesting access to the outer cliff sections for raptor survey, schedule flexible.
She sent it.
Then she went back outside in the rain and counted again.
Thirty-seven. But she could see two individuals that had moved from the east face to the ridge section while she’d been inside — so the true count from the cottage position was probably higher. The outer sections were going to be the key data.
She thought about the outer sections and the six-year stability figure and the specific quality of a population record that returned the same number six consecutive times.
She thought: *the outer sections are where the answer is.*
She went inside and began reviewing the previous survey records.
She was reading the third season’s data when her message app showed a response from the community liaison. He would meet her at the cottage tomorrow morning at eight. He would take her to the accessible survey positions.
She wrote in her field notebook: *Liaison contact: Finn Ashwood. Response time: 47 minutes. Tomorrow 8 a.m. Accessible survey positions — note the qualifier.*
She looked at the word *accessible.*
She thought: *I should ask about the outer cliff positions specifically.*
She thought: *I’ll ask tomorrow.*
She looked at the rain on the cottage window and the grey-on-grey sea beyond and thought that this was going to be an interesting survey.
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