Kambarang—birth season—and on the lake’s eastern edge we see the recently arrived coot chicks again, before something startles wayan the whitefaced heron, kooridor the egret and ngalkaning the night heron from the rushes to the north. I wonder where kadar the musk duck has got to, but soon she appears in front of the same rushes. A couple of pink eared ducks arrive in the middle of the lake from the north. Some black winged stilts stand further to the south. The owl whisperer details the exact location of a third tawny frogmouth, and I point out to her the reed warbler on a rush in the morning sunshine. She counters with an account of a bluebill to the north. I mention kadar. She trumps with a picture of a wagtail nest, like a woven felt cup, now gone—disappeared overnight!—but tells of another one next to the golfcourse to the south; my nephew and I find it a few minutes later, following a wagtail with stick in its mouth. There are Pacific black ducks and a couple of shelducks to the south. The owl whisperer also mentioned that the coot by the jetty who’s been sitting on her nest for many weeks has finally hatched some chicks, though more eggs remain. We watch for confirmation. Lake at 1.47 metres. And then yes, we see that some chicks have hatched all black with red-ish yellow heads, feathers spiky and not yet settled—they are small and come back under their mother’s weight and wings. Someone asks us—seeing only black feathers and a nest—if it is a swan. “Eurasian coot,” we reply, and soon walk on. More coot nests. We talk about Goethe’s observations on organs of perception. At the gazebo the blue bill is obvious in the morning light, his bill the colour of the sky; we watch as he paddles under the gazebo into the shade. A human mother, son and (likely) grandmother walk past us. They don’t notice the duck—they’re looking for swans; they lament not many being present. Somebody else arrives. We point out a turtle. The mother sees, and eventually the grandmother does too. Something changes. They try to show it to the son in the stroller. We point out the bluebill which returns to the light when we look for it amongst the shadows. There are swans and coots out there. My nephew and I talk about what happens when people finally see things—be they physical or immaterial, such as thoughts. Even for thoughts people say, “Ah! I see.” My nephew and I talk about Goethe’s observation that thinking can become a kind of perceiving, and perceiving a kind of thinking. We walk the curving western edge of the lake and see a Pacific duck with about eight chicks; a large group of coots further north; some more Pacific ducks and teals in the paperbark shadows. We cross to the dog park and find the owls still on their nests. And right before we reach the car, we go looking for the third owl that the whisperer promised. “Third tree on the right after the XXXX, not too high.” My nephew sees it first: another frogmouth waiting. All three owls are in eucalypts. Just another Wednesday at the lake.