SE morning wind becoming SW during the day. Blue sky, alto to the north. The beach with a gradual sand decline to the water—very slight lines of bay ridges, both near the water and up higher. It’s low ride, with the moon moving from peak south gradually to mid sky. There’s little to no seaweed left—all mostly covered. The whole scene speaks, still, of a recent calm beach shoreline history.
Category Archives: Nature Poetry
Owls & Flowerings
Today there are owls left in only one tree. And there are four of them. Four tawny fromouths. Two adults and two chicks. They stand together in one clump.
Also today are a few plants flowering: white maleleucas, pink gums, yellow eucalypts.
And a few days later, nephew Fin says something along the lines of: “Those owl chicks—at first, when they were small, they were like little buds, and now that they’re bigger, they’re like little flowerings.”
On talking about this later, my wife insists the process should be called “Flowlering.”
Harrier Harried
Light rain at the lake today. There are the usual birds of the last few days: reed warblers, coots, bardoongooba shovelers, marangana wood ducks, kwirlam the swamphen, nolyang the moorhen, yet, ngoonan, wimbin, hardheads. Plus today there’s also the nankeen night heron, a seagull and now what I believe to be a swamp harrier, all long-wingspanned and orange brown, flying low overhead. I notice only the coots make a noise in the grass on the other side, but then in comes one solitary seagull to chase the harrier away (two other seagulls fly in support) to the northern part of the lake, where the harrier pursues two black winged stilts…and then is gone from my vision.
Walyunga Eagles
Back out at Walyunga retracing steps of a few days ago, but this time with nephew and packrafts. We hike up along the riverbank, and then cut across the dry riverbed to the island, and at the running river put the rafts in. With us throughout the day are black ducks, teals, hardheads, cormorants (black and kakak), kaa kaa, wardong, noolyarak, manatj, galama. The water levels are low and we get a good look at and feel for the granite—often below us as we run aground on the shallow rapids. The wind is against us at first, but eventually dies down. There is some rain at one point—I shelter under a low melaleuca. There are sections of tuarts all of the same size that have regrown after fire. Sheoaks—some dead—zamias and invasives. At one point in a calm open section of deeper water we lie on our backs ad paddle slowly ahead. Fin notices some eagles way up high. There are two of them. And then I notice one way up even higher than those others, almost in the clouds, almost in the blue, in the sun.
Not Yet
Walyunga National Park, hiking upriver to raft back down again.
Nephew: “Is that a yet—Paific black duck?”
Me: “That’s a grey teal—ngoonan—smaller, with more rounded head. So, not yet.”
Nephew: “Not yet…but almost.”
Duck Numbers Water Levels
The duck and other bird numbers at the lake are rising. Water levels must be about 1.36 metres. I don’t know if other water options are drying up. There’s the black duck, the grey teal, the pink ear, the shoveler, the dusky moorhen, coots, black winged stilts, seagulls, egrets. No musk or wood ducks or swans seen at the south end today. Water dropping, birds appearing.
Musk Duck Missing Out
I arrive at the lake today, and soon after start talking to a fellow with binoculars. I ask him if he’s seen anything in particular today. He says some musk ducks just south of where we were. I ask if it was mother and young—he said he thought so—two young. I walk down—there are pink ears and bardoongooba the shoveler, a couple of hardheads, yet the black duck and ngoonan the grey teal, and a little further out the mother with two young—kadar the musk duck. The mother is diving down and one of the adolescents is following wherever she happens to pop up, often receiving whatever she pulls up in her beak. The other young one is spending more time on its tail—pruning, preening, plucking—only slowly coming over after each of its mother’s surfacings, generally missing out on whatever food there might be, and then returning to the tail.
Introducing the Cutting of the Figs
The fig trees are either going or being pruned at the south end of the lake. Their (introduced) wood is too soft and inviting for the (introduced) polyphagouns shothole borer which likes to introduce a fungus that it farms in the holes inside. This is seen as too much of a threat for (introduced) agricultural trees such as avocados on the city’s edges. And seeing as there is no (introduced) chemical strong enough to kill them, the (introduced) land managers of the Department of Primary Industries and Regional Development have decided to remove (introduced) limbs or whole (introduced) trees.
Goats and Roos
At the end of a day following the path of a distant relative I drive from Northam through Bakers Hill, back to Toodyay Road and decide to deviate across to Walyunga National Park. I only have a couple of hours before they close the gates, so I park and walk up along the Gugglyar Avon River and keep going past all the tuarts and sheoaks and low water levels; past the teals and hardheads and galahs to where the trail moves away from the water. I decide to keep going but find there, in my unpathed path, a group of goats, one of whom has decided to brandish his horns a little. I give them some width—a herd of a dozen or more, I see now—and head further upriver, crossing on dry rocks to what would be an island during higher water levels. There I find a solitary kangaroo sleeping in the shade and sand of a tree. It gets up when it sees me and begins hopping in all sorts of directions; I can’t tell if its very young, or very old and waiting to die, or even if it might be blind. There is a deeper pool of water in the river nearby. I go back the way I came and cut in even further upriver. By now I’m aware I’m well off the track, without cell reception or a personal locator beacon, and snakes would be no surprise. But I walk on and cross the island towards the running river water on the other side, seeing a couple more kangaroos—mother and young—not really hopping away when I appear, as if I could almost touch them, as if they were not used to humans. I arrive at the water running over shallow rocks, with deeper stretches upriver. On the other side of the water is a trainline. And to me, the whole island and area feels a little untended, unloved by human hands and hearts and minds.
Ancestors and Spoonbills
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.
John Stubley 