On the north-west corner of the lake
there’s a sudden loud
squawking of crows.
More and more come to the scene.
It grows very loud.
It moves like a black cloud
circling a tuart tree
then back around.
I watch and try to see if I can see
a raptor they’re chasing,
but can’t make one out.
More wardong arrive—
maybe a hundred by now,
and it’s getting very loud.
I think of someone’s T-shirt on a flight
back from Bali—
it had a picture of two crows sitting
on a branch with the caption
‘Attempted murder’.
Well, this is full blown carnage.
I keep watching, and eventually
see a larger brown raptor
cruising slowly along
beneath the maelstrom.
Maybe a swamp harrier.
He looks relatively un-fussed.
Eventually it all dies down
and the crows return
to their respective parts of the lake
and beyond.
Category Archives: Nature Poetry
Kadar Under
Kadar the male musk duck
this time by the eastern viewing area,
more fish than bird,
going under.
Further south are bardoongooba the shoveler
and two ngoonan grey teals.
They’re heading his direction.
And I remember another time
a musk duck came up under a scared
Pacific black duck
at the southern end of the lake.
I think of this
just as this musk duck
goes under again.
The other ducks keep swimming.
And then
they suddenly fly off in a panic,
as the musk comes up between them,
showing his slippery black head,
with the only other things left
a couple of feathers
from the departing shoveler
and teals.
Kadar Chase
Today I saw something I’d never seen before.
At the gazebo
in the northern part of the lake,
water levels still beyond 2.1 metres,
I watched north as a bid came
flapping awkwardly along the water’s surface.
It was too big for a coot.
Too small for a swan.
It seemed to be stuck
half way in the water,
and so kind of flapped from side to side,
trying to free itself from it,
like a statue emerging from stone.
The one chasing it was doing the same.
Eventually the form came into expression,
with flap under bill.
Kadar the musk duck.
Right at that moment it stopped,
about 10 metres from me,
and dived under.
The chaser stayed on the surface,
also a male,
and paddled slowly past me towards the southern bank.
The first one popped up a few moments later
back towards the centre of the lake.
But he really only put his eyes and bill
above the water,
then went back down again.
The other one didn’t notice,
and disappeared again into the
bushes on the shoreline.
The Owls and the Whisperer
I have not seen any owls near the lake this year.
Nor have I seen the owl whisperer
who has for the last two years
told me where the owls had nested,
but always asked that I not tell
too many others.
I visit the old spots, but they’re not there.
I walk the lake at the times
she used to visit.
But she’s not there.
Signs
There are signs with bird names, pictures and descriptions
at the lake.
Somebody wrote on one of them a year or so ago
in black pen “Nyungar names?”
A few days later the question was scrubbed off again;
gone, like it had never been.
Sometimes I run into the signs’ creator and her husband.
Last weekend Katie suggested we write up the names
on stickers and place them on.
This week we’ve been talking about where we
get our stories from—Katie kept mentioning signs like these.
Today, also in black pen,
someone has begun writing names under some of the birds.
Kakak. Yet. Kidjibroon. Kanamit. Wimbin. Maali. Wayan.
That’s as far as they’ve got.
I know the book they’re taken from—
they’re the same as the names I’ve learned.
Three days later the names are still there.
I wonder what the response will be
this time.
The Lake’s Contraction
Lake today, well into Birak, levels at 1.13 metres, or thereabouts. There are birds scattered across the water—mostly coots in the centre—with ducks of all kinds on the edges, as well as a few swans, stilts, and more. There is relative calm as I watch from under the figs on the south end in the shade. And then, suddenly, there is a simultaneous flutter and flurrying of wings as birds from the north and from all edges of the lake fly towards its centre. They seem to fly together in species clouds—there is a group of stilts, and a group of teals, there are Pacific black ducks together (with nine newborn chicks in a line trailing after), and amongst the groups are scattered also coots, shelducks, shovelers, wood ducks, pink ears low and grey, probably some hardheads but I don’t see them, some grey-feathered cygnets. Even the white corellas above me start fussing about, though only slightly moreso than usual. I’m looking around for the raptor—likely the swamp harrier—and there he is, coming in low across the grass and rushes like a jumbo coming into land, then flying higher, whirling around. More birds fly into the centre, other birds come in from the north. Crows fly across the lake, but don’t head towards him. There are no seagulls to chase him today. Up above, much higher, a cormorant is exiting the scene, while about the same level as the harrier a white-faced heron is honking and gripping at the air the way he does in his flying style. More birds come towards the southern part of the lake—it is getting pretty full in there. Only the ibis seem to have stayed put on their melaleuca perches to the west. The harrier cruises around for a while longer, mostly over the rushes to the east, before eventually returning to the north, as the birds begin to slowly move back towards the edges from the deepest part of the lake—the last part to dry in late summer. The whole scene like the workings of a kind of organism—the way a body can contract towards the centre in the face of fear.
Full Sky
We start a fire and then I’m hit with the sudden thought reminder that it is full moon tonight. We head out towards the river through the narrow laneway, and as the path opens up suddenly there it is, big and bold and yellow between clouds on the horizon, its reflection lighting up a rippled line along the river. Above, between the clouds right at this moment is Jupiter, then Saturn higher, and then a very bright Venus to the west. The belt of Orion still off to the right.
Calling the ‘Wild’
Our friend from the Netherlands is staying with us, and we go for an evening walk along the cliffs by the river. I make a quick scan for dolphins. “Dolphins!” he says.”Where?” my wife replies. “Calling to them,” he adds. “Dolphins!” We walk on, maybe no more than a hundred metres, and then I spot some by the cliffs on the north side, heading downriver—one, two, three dolphins. We watch them come towards us, cutting across the edge of the sandbar, before they go past, heading further south. We go on to the end of our usual walk, pausing a little longer at the turnaround than we usually do; and in that time we see another pod on the other side of the river by the tree where all the night herons roost—one, two swishing around in the flatwater shallows between the yacht club jetties. “If I had the honour of naming dolphins, I’d call them Pea One, Pea Two and Pea Three,” our friend says. “Peas in a pod.”
We turn back towards home, and within a couple of hundred metres, there are some more dolphins right in the armpit of the river—right where it bends. We can see their tails—they look to be fishing—maybe one, two, even three. “Could be the same ones. But usually if they’re heading downriver they won’t turn around and come back again.” So we’ve either seen three groups in one outing (highly unusual), or two with one group behaving very unusually—whether they’re all part of the same overall pod (they’re not usually that spread out) or different ones.
We thank the kwilena the dolphin…and our friend.
Full Moon Summer Rain
Today preceded by alto clouds like snakeskins, predicting rain. In the morning my wife and I head out, grey skies to the west. “It said it was going to rain today,” she says. We look at her weather app. The image says rain. The words say no rain. The clouds look dark. We walk on, and before we get to where we’re going there is the very lightest misty spray, and then it is over. “Unusual for this time of year,” she says. Only later that night do I remember the full moon.
John Stubley 