After the first rains came some birds, perhaps we could say ‘the usual suspects’. Now after more rain we again go to the lake and find water filling, growing wider (or else the water table rising), and for the first time since it reached its serious dryness, yet—the Pacific black ducks—are back; there are about half a dozen, some of them even look as if they’re swimming, or at least floating. White ibis again, straw necked ibis—rain-time opportunists. The two shelducks are back again, coming and going as they have been these last few weeks and months, often doing their best spoonbill impersonations in the shoreline shallows. Wayan the whitefaced heron is here, so often as he is, in the backdrop. More janjarak black winged stilts—maybe half a dozen. Dotterels still, maybe a couple of new arrivals. And of all things we see a swan—sitting on the water at one point; two days later he’ll again be gone, as will the Pacific black ducks. But more janjarak will come. Wayan will stay, as will the dotterels and shelducks. And, eventually, the other ducks too will return, and all the others. Yet another breathing in and out in the bigger breathing of the seasons and the year, both for water and for all its attendants/attendance.