Approaching mid birak
and the end of the calendar year.
Things seem slow at the lake today.
Maybe it’s me,
maybe both.

We seem to be at the beginning
of another warming time.

The wind is from the south east.
New Moon tomorrow morning,
with peak south for the month.
The Sun’s peak south for the year
comes Sunday, here.

Near the south end of the lake
there are four birds
looking similar, but not alike.
Two are adolescent coots mostly black
with white fronts—but the other two—maybe they’re
coots or grebes.
I wait.
The coots dive under by jumping up like 
springboarders, then eventually float back up
to the surface full bodied like rising bubbles.
The others birds are slightly greyer…
I wait as they stay on the surface…
then one slips quietly under,
as a diving duck might, like a bluebill or musk,
and comes back up gently, head first…
grebes.

There are much fewer birds at the south end
under the figs, and none near the jetty.

At the gazebo I watch a coot
chase away wimbin the pink ear
into the area of a second coot
that doesn’t seem to care.
Shortly after, three yet Pacific black ducks
come into the area of the second coot
and promptly turn around
as he starts following them
into the area of the first coot,
who doesn’t seem to care.

A third coot mother feeds
its adolescent near the gazebo.
But after a while I see it
peck the back of the neck
of its young, forcing it away.

Swan parents are out feeding
with their single cygnet.
The ibis are squabbling again in the 
melaleuca bushes.
A kooridor egret flies over
and lands in the shallower water to the north.

I walk past the shaded eastern end of the island
now more populous with yet, maybe shovelers.
And when passing the northern end,
spy swans and wayan the white-faced heron,
and maybe even a white-necked heron in there.

I’m standing at the gazebo again.
There’s the single cygnet with its mother
on the bank behind me, with the father
swimming past to the north.
There are more cygnets with parents 
heading into the melaleucas to the east.
A couple of wimbin pink ears
drift on the water in the wind
to my right.
Some coots dive down nearby
and feed their young.
To the north
there’s an egret
all white and sticklike.

The grass is growing up
below the water.
I notice no turtles.
The bachelor swan is not
in his spot on the bank.
The group of ibis
in the bushes to the east
is fewer in number today.

And it strikes me, pretty clearly,
as it has done more often recently:
the main thing, the main process,
is opening up those organs of perception
we have, but have not yet developed,
of which the physical senses
are just metaphors.

Sometimes I see a black-shouldered kite
by the cliffs near the river
around sunset
when the wind whips up,
blowing in from the east.
He rides it as it comes up,
hovering perfectly still
in all that movement,
then drops down into it,
feet first,
for a mouse or two.

I have also seen him there once
when the wind came in from the west.

But on many evenings,
seabreeze in from the southwest,
he is over by the beach, where the wind rises
over the dunes and ridge before the 
train line, or maybe on the other
side of the line
where it rises up again.

The kite
formed by the wind,
the wind given form,
and an instrument of it.

The last piece I posted yesterday 
was on the ‘raptor mood’—
that sense for when a raptor might be approaching.

When I arrive at the lake today, there is little time
to sense anything—
straight away a couple of janjarak
black-winged stilts are flying south, 
low over the water.
Then a group of yet
Pacific black ducks go 
the same way,
A flock of pigeons.
And then I notice the manatj white
corellas going up a level
in the fig trees.

And then I see him,
all wingspan wide and orange—
a swamp harrier coming in low from the north.
The coots and hens pause and shriek a little.
The cormorants 
don’t move from their dead-log perches…
And then he swings back to the north,
no crows or magpies in sight.

I go past the southern end,
past a wayan white-faced heron,
past the marangana wood ducks and
yet, past the two janjarak, and coots
and hens.

At the gazebo, two of the three adult swans are 
out in the water. There are some swallows,
maybe a pink ear or two.
The white ibis are squabbling in the melaleuca bushes
to the east.

Then the harrier is there again, 
flying over the north-east corner.
One of the swans has his head in the water,
then up, then down again, then up
as the harrier flies over—apparently
unconcerned by the raptor.

I wait a while.
And consider the way the cormorants
and the swans didn’t seem troubled.

And then the same swan starts a fast 
wingflap run over the surface of the water
towards me, away from the raptor zone,
towards his solitary spot.
And then the other swan is doing the same
back to his mate and cygnet 
to the west.
The coots are clucking.
The cormorants are moving now too.
Maybe they all heard something 
i didn’t
from behind the rushes
to the north.

The raptor is out again now,
and visible. 
But now the crows are on his tail,
swooping and chasing him down into some 
bushes by the lake’s edge—
amazing how some predators
don’t like the presence of other
predators.

I’m observing all this
while pondering
what Western Australia needs.

A morning swim beyond limestone reefs
with the moon a waning crescent
above, and karljarkang the crested tern
gliding by, both reminding me
where I am.

*** 

Two bardoongooba shovelers sitting
in the shade at the lake today—
back for the first time in months.

Janjarak black-winged stilts
now up to 13 in number,
hugging the shoreline 
with marangana wood ducks
and yet black ducks
which, further west, 
have spilled out across the fence
and path and playground,
claiming the ground
all covered in figs.
The water got high,
and now the lake floweth over,
though not with water
but with ducks.

They scurry back towards the lake
as I reclaim the path from the figs
and their droppings.
They jump back into it
when I walk down to the jetty,
and I can’t help but feeling 
like a kind of duck herder,
a duck shepherd,
today.

The lake now 1.86 metres on the guage.
The highest I saw it all last year was 1.53;
at this time of year it was 1.13.
It’s now dropping half a centimetre a day, 
which won’t lead to a drying out 
of the south end, even if it doesn’t rain before May.
(Though this guage starts at 1 metre.)

There are four cygnets,
now more black than grey.
Today I see them stretching
and testing out their wings.
There’s white on their underside wingtips,
and their beaks are turning red.
They’re on their own, with the mother
following. They dive and roll 
under water, and come up preening.
One swims off ahead of its mother,
the other three disappear
between some reeds.

At the gazebo, there’s a single cygnet
with its mother,
more grey than the others.
Plus a grebe doing its best
turtle impersonation under water,
though faster,
coming up with his hair slicked back 
like a gangster.
The older coots have dropped the red colouring
of their heads on the way to white,
though they’re currently grey
with whiter breasts.
Kwirlam the swamphen adolescent
has a first touch
of purple on his breast,
still otherwise black,
with no red beak yet.

While on the island, about a dozen
yet are sitting where soon
there will be a beach.

Change in the air
at the lake today…
every day.

Unusual morning just as it begins
to warm up for several days.
The seabreeze is in early,
as it has been over the last week
or so.

I swim at North Cott
then cut across to the lake.

There’s bardoongooba
the shoveler, back for the first time
in quite a while.

Two ngoonan teals
are out in the open,
as are a yet black duck with three 
young ducklings who, 
in the centre of the lake,
look like they’re crossing
a vast ocean.

Wimbin the pink ear
is out and about in this southern part,
as are a couple of boodoo
blue bills,
both of whom have been
hanging out in the northern part
of the lake.

Near the gazebo,
later,
wayan the white-faced heron
comes in to land on a dead log,
scattering a couple of wimbin.

There’s a change in the air today.
Perhaps most noticeable 
in the switching of wind
I notice on the drive home.
The seabreeze has stoped, 
about 11am, and it has gone
offshore, again.
Strange.

I pick up our car from the service place
and at the last minute 
decide to take
my afternoon walk at the lake.
This I rarely ever do.
The only time I’m usually here 
is the morning.
And today—this afternoon—
it seems a different lake.

Earlier in the day I’d sat on a train
and looked down on it
as I glided by—a faint sliver
of water seen for a moment
then gone.
The whole green tree mass of it
shaped like some 
bowl, the whole scene seen
in more of single wholeness,
cupped in green.

Now I walk the water’s edge, again,
as per usual, though the light is all wrong—
it comes at me from the western edge
so the morning shady spot is now in full Sun.
The wind whips in from the southwest—
not totally unusual in winter, 
but it now seems somehow more forceful,
more violent; birak afternoon
wind of oceanic light
and air.

I stand on the jetty, unusually in shade,
and enjoy there a moment 
the darkness of it,
the wind behind
calmed slightly by the trees.

On the western edge trees bring shade
in places, but not much cover
from the wind.
Shadows stretch from their base out across the water.

At the gazebo there are people taking photos or video
while they throw limestone rocks in the water.
‘Turtle hunting?’ I venture.
‘No, we’re making a movie
and we need an image of a bubbling spring.
‘You know there are turtles down there too?’
Silence.
Then another big plop.
‘That looks like it might be the shot,’
the shooter says to the thrower.

I walk on around the rest of the lake,
the Sun and wind mostly behind me.

And then I get to the parkland
where in the warmer months
I chart a course from shady tree
to shady tree.
Now, much if not most of the place
is in shadow.
I wander across,
only a few spots where 
light still creeps in.

I arrive at the lake gazebo this morning
and there are two older women 
leaning over the northern edge
looking down into the clear water.
I immediately think of turtles.

We say our good mornings, but it 
seems like they’ve been
looking at other things.

As they head off up the ramp
one of them says, ‘no turtles’.
But something inside me says,
‘today there’s one here’.

I look all around in the lit up areas,
where the water is clear under a still surface,
strands of grass growing up,
a log or a rock here or there
on the brown bottom,
half a meter or more below
the top of the water.

(The gauge at the other end of the lake 
says 1.9 metres today.)

I still can’t see one.
I shift to the darker areas
in the shade of the gazebo’s roof.
The women are about to leave.

I take off my glasses, and there,
among the dark shadows,
is the dark form of a turtle
heading south.

‘Turtle,’ I call out to the women.
They come over.
‘You won’t believe me. He’s hard to see.
There, in the shadows.’

I’m right—he is hard to see, and they
don’t believe me.
We talk a while about turtle numbers,
quendas and crows.

And all the while he’s heading slowly south. 
I follow him in the shadow
and point him out again
as he shows whiter side flesh
under the shell.
‘Oh yes, I see the white strip—it’s moving,’
one says.

We follow him a little more.
He comes out into the full light.
I point him out with the shadow 
of my finger. ‘I don’t have either of 
your eyes,’ the other woman says.
‘He’s heading for the shadow of your neck,’ 
says her friend.
‘Oh!’.

Eventually we all slowly move off,
the women continuing their walk
as I return to the northern side of the gazebo,
just as guide dogs and their trainers arrive.

‘Find yourself a seat,’ the first person says to his dog.
I imagine the dog sitting on the little bench, but she
just sits on the floor.

I move off back up the ramp.
But suddenly I’m stuck by this little troop of dogs,
having been just yesterday
on top of one of the seven hills around
North Fremantle / Mosman Park, Mooro Country—
one of the seven dingo brothers, as the signs say.
I count the dogs.
Seven.

I see marangana the wood duck—
male and female—
paddling with three ducklings
close by. 

I haven’t seen any wood ducklings 
in a while.
To me they look like yet
Pacific black ducklings.
And I’m surprised 
when a group of 
yet try to pluck at them,
sending the
tiny things
skimming across the water
or briefly ducking
under.

Reminds me of how easy it is
to mistake an adolescent coot
with an Australasian grebe.
How fixed we can get in our concepts,
till that’s all we see,
and how the context—looking for mothers,
seeeing whether they dive—
both spatial and temporal
can save us 
from error.
Waiting, waiting,
to decide.

Today I’m at the lake jetty,
out of the wind.

Manatj the white corella
is in the fig tree
further to the east.
He is making noise—
one cocophanous choir.

At one point, 
their shrieks and cries
rise a level of fear,
of apprehension,
of caution.
And then I see it—
a sleek raptor, no bigger than manatj,
gliding into the upper branches.
He is darker than a kestrel,
likely a hobby.
Manatj doesn’t leave,
but sings his fearful song.

I wonder what he’s afraid of—
being of the same size as the raptor.
And then I realise
I don’t think I’ve ever seen 
a baby manatj
or manatj nest.