At the northern end of the lake—in these dry months when it’s not a lake of water but a lake of grass—the dead grey tree stumps stick up out of the shifting ground of green. And up on the highest of these branches, on a sharp point where trunk once thrived but then dried and split, there sits—in silent, steely repose—a bird of white; the only things giving it away is its form and slightly lighter colour than the trunk and branches. It sits and watches and waits. I have seen it before, and later, on other days—one day appearing from the grass to return to its perch, the black splashes on its wings enough to name it—the black shouldered kite. Bird of the northern lake, now dry.