Walking with Katie the last steps before we arrive
at the eastern edge of Galbamaanup Lake Claremont.

Suddenly I feel compelled to say:
“i wonder what new chaos awaits us today—
feels like anything could happen.”

And almost immediately several things begin
to play out: Kadar the musk duck is there,
yet the Pacific black duck with three ducklings—
I start pointing these out to Katie when
bardoongooba the shoveler, janjarak
the black-winged stilt and some yet
fly in towards the centre of the lake
from the slightly-more-northern edges,
as a cacophony of bird sounds starts up.

And then we both see him—a swamp harrier 
flying down over the lake’s centre, big and brown,
tilting towards the western edge. 
He’s pursued by what looks like the small
kanamit welcome swallow and a single wardong crow.

“Look at that little one go!” Katie says.
“And only one crow,” I add.

Other birds start to move—a whole cloud of 
bardoongooba flies low towards the north,
with some yet and ngoonan the grey teal.
The swamp harrier moves further south, out of view,
just as a few more crows arrive on the scene.

Right then I notice kooridor the egret almost
at our feet neat the rushes and reeds, white
and still and silent, sculpture like,
even as the baby yet swim past.
Out on the lake, a grebe chases another 
who ducks under the water.

At the gazebo, a little later, several boodoo 
the bluebill are still there. I point them out
just as kidjibroon the coot strikes one of the 
younger boodoo, pushing him under
and trying to keep him there.
Instinctively I pick up my coffee mug
and am just about to throw it when 
I see the boodoo has made his way out from under
and is swimming away.

A man arrives soon after and starts looking
down into the water. He has earpods,
but I venture anyway: “Seen any turtles lately?”
He takes them out and I repeat my question.

“Well, I usually walk around Gallup
not here.”

We get to talking—he has moved here in recent years
from Melbourne, earlier Boston.
An engineer.

“It must not dry out here usually,” he says,
“juding by the lack of grass in the southeast 
section of the lake, from what I saw last summer.”
I find that an interesting theory.

We all talk water and how to design with it, 
or against it.
“Like in the Netherlands,” Katie says, “where they wouldn’t
have any land if they couldn’t get rid of water.”

He tells us about an old waterfall they got rid of
in Melbourne, the upriver side of which used to be fresh;
the way Boston has been dug up out of the 
bottom of the water.

Towards the end of the conversation I look north,
and there is the harrier again. I point him out.
“Wow,” the man says, and then begins to make 
slight ‘woosh’-ing sounds…as if it’s him
that’s up there gliding.