The first rains of the cooler months have come—not too much, but enough to attract the first birds of the lake back again. There have been some who’ve hung around the puddles of water over the dryer months, like wayan the whitefaced heron, janjarak the black winged stilt, some dotterels or sandpiper maybe. But this morning after first rains is like the evening I came a few years ago after first rains back then, the last time the lake was close to drying out. Three wet winters in between have meant that this scene of birds returning to a dry lake has been missed. But this day it’s more or less the same as several years ago, when I came and saw a great flock of seagulls, usually so rarely here, pecking at the slightly damper chunks of mud, some welcome swallows flitting slightly above, and a group of ibis plucking up something with their long curved beaks from further down than the seagulls can reach among the growing water and mud. That was a few years ago. And on arriving today with my wife I’m surprised to find something of the same scene repeated—the water has not grown too much, but there are seagulls again picking away in or near the water, though only four; kanamit the welcome swallows are welcoming back to life, though only briefly, whatever they flit and fly around, lowdown, to catch; and the ibis too are back, in numbers, walking as they like, shooting their beaks down into the cracked gaps between dried mud bricks, now filling, at least a bit, with rain. They have all waited, as whatever they are eating has waited, through dryness, approaching death maybe, waiting, waiting for the rains to come, waiting for life to hatch and spring and begin (again) and end for some—waiting and then acting, knowing exactly what to do when those rains finally came. 

While further from the lake’s centre, kwirlam the swamp hen—the lakeside year-round, wet-or-dry, guardian—swims and washes in a private little puddle pool, today now deeper, by the rushes.