Before seeing a dead koolbardie magpie I’m at the eastern viewing area again. And in the reeds below, unseen for much of the last few weeks, I see the female kadar musk duck with two young, now not so small, paddling away from the reeds and rushes and from my interruption. A little later there is koordji-koordji the reed warbler at the top of the reed, near the seedhead, the whole thing bending slightly with its little weight, and the lake so still that the entire scene is mirrored clearly in the water below. To my right is the paperbark that is always there, but today I take special note of the many dozens of layers of its skin, folded in, folded over, layering and layering like limestone. There is the sound of coots in the water, and the sound of quenda the bandicoot in the dry rustling and leaves.