I take a drive following the movements of my first blood relative of this place, starting in Walyalup Fremantle, heading through Boorloo Perth, then out along the Gugglyar Avon River to Toodyay. I follow the Guggleyar further upriver to Northam and there do a lap along the river’s edge, crossing at two different bridges. There are geese and wood ducks, coots, seagulls and, in a little wetland area, white swans.

And up on the road bridge, where you can see the Mortlock River flowing into the Avon, I notice the clean white of a flying kakka-bakka spoonbill. He has something in his mouth—either a reed or a stick, and so I assume he’s building a nest. I watch him fly up to the height of the treetops by the river’s bank, come in to land, think twice, circle again, then again, before landing and coming to a halt. I lose him in the branches and leaves.

And it seemed to me at the time a long way up for such a bird to be building such a home as this.