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.
Category Archives: Lakes
The Rising of the Deep
Today the lake is at 1.61 metres
on the guage.
The highest it reached in the wettest
point of 2024 was 1.53 metres.
This is the middle of summer—
the end of birak, approaching
bunaru.
The coots have been out in the middle
for some time, diving down,
with the swans on the edges.
Occasionally a diving musk
or bluebill swims across.
Most of the ducks have been
in the shade of the figs
of the south end,
happily eating
the falling fruit.
But now, joining the coots in the lake’s centre,
are swans and a growing number of ducks.
It’s not so much that the water is falling down,
as all the grass—that’s had so long (in time)
and so much (in water)—
has been slowly, gradually,
rising up.
So that when you look out on the lake today
there are patches of greeny surfacy ‘stuff’
where it looks kind of shallow
or maybe someplace you could walk across.
But, again, the level has not fallen,
so much as the depths have risen up.
Kidjibroon the Coot
Kidjibroon the Eurasian coot—
all black with white nose and beak,
the size of a small hen,
and equipped with sharp web-like toes—
is a feisty bird,
kind of spear-like.
He almost never backs down
from a fight.
He will churn the water with his feet,
or run across it like a dart
into the fray.
He will fluff up his tail
and click his throat in warning.
And, if needed, he will lean back
and stick his claws into the
breast of his opponent—mostly only
other coots or swamphens
meet this latter fate.
He will take on any other coot
and ducks of any size.
And they are happy to fight in pairs.
Sometimes though,
it’s possible to see another side.
From time to time he’ll
hang around maali the swan
who’s dipping down,
pulling up grass
from the bottom of the lake.
The coot will wait and take whatever
the swan leaves behind.
Sometimes he’ll scurry off to the side
when a raptor buzzes over,
like a harrier or hobby or kite.
But the times I’ve seen him get
the biggest fright,
is when something comes at him
from underneath.
The coot is also a kind of diver,
though one that jumps up
in the air, then struggles under,
before re-emerging
as a bubble would,
floating to the top.
All in all he seems too buoyant,
but he doesn’t let that stop him.
There are, however,
proper diving ducks in this lake,
such as kadar the musk duck,
and boodoo the bluebill.
I have seen kadar come up under
a Pacific black duck
and, if I recall right,
under kidjibroon too.
But today I saw it most clearly.
A coot was sitting on the water’s surface
somewhere near the middle of the lake.
Suddenly he jumped up and
started swimming around in circles
while clucking
and preening himself,
seemingly trying
to shake something off—
his fright, most likely.
For some reason it was immediately clear
that something had come up underneath him.
I waited and waited, thinking it must
have been kadar the musk.
I waited some more,
and then—I had to almost squint—
there appeared
a tiny bird—a
grebe—likely Australasian—
looking around
with little eyes—
popping up
from beneath.
The Kingfisher
I’m back at the lake this year,
thinking I may have left it behind.
I’m on the verge of illness, with clear skies
and a gentle south westerly.
I get to the gazebo and am slightly disappointed
there’s someone already sitting there,
not looking like they’ll be moving soon.
A woman, about 70, faces north, reading a bird book.
Yes, I look over her shoulder, but then
I settle in, standing, looking west.
Something lands in the paperbark in the water nearby,
slightly bigger than a honeyeater, but then I lose it.
Soon after, there’s something on a branch, facing me,
chest mostly white, turning itself slightly to reveal
a flashing blue of wings and an oversized beak.
Kanyinak.
“Kingfisher,” I say to her, not knowing how she’ll respond,
“probably sacred.”
“What?” she replies.
“Kingfisher,” I say again, and point to the branch.
“Oh!” she cries, “You know I have never seen one,”
she says in Scandinavian accent, “even though
I have been looking for many years.”
At that moment, he turns around
and gives us a full view of his blue-green back.
“Oh!” she says again.
“I saw you with a bird book, so I thought you might
be interested,” I venture. “I’ve only ever seen a couple here.”
We end up talking for the next hour or more.
“Why do you come here looking at birds?” she asks.
“Well, I guess we have many to look at.”
“Yes, but we also have many in Sweden—
there are birds everywhere.”
She points at the birds on the nearby signs:
“I have seen many of these here,
but not this one: the kite, or the kestrel.”
“They’re here sometimes, so too other raptors like
hobbies and harriers,” I reply, but we have to translate sometimes
from Noongar to English to Latin to Swedish
and back again.
“And I have seen the ducks,” she says.
“Have you seen the musk duck or the bluebill?” I ask.
“I tend more to hear birds
than see them,” she says.
“I am part of a group for birds in Sweden.”
Soon after, a female and an adolescent bluebill appear,
and I point them out—she seems dubious, mainly due to their
lack of blue bills. But then she says, “look, there is the male!”
“And over there, near the trees, that bigger duck, sitting lower
in the water, with its tail up, that’s a musk,” I tell her.
We talk about colonisation, about the USA, about all the
signage for everything in Australia.
We talk about volunteerism, about her family here,
about the approach of 2029 (200 years of Western Australia).
We talk about migration and multiculturalism.
We talk about places in Sweden I have been,
places in Western Australia she has seen.
Soon after, a harrier appears to the north.
“Oh!” she says again.
There is more.
Eventually I feel it is time to go.
“My wife is probably wondering where I am,”
I say. She asks for my contact details.
“You have the same initials as my daughter.”
“What is your work?” I ask.
“I am a psychologist.”
“Thank you for pointing out the kingfisher,” she says,
“I will always remember that.”
The Cygnet Turns
A few weeks ago I saw the single cygnet
with mother
in the northern part of the lake
shood off
by a coot.
Today the fluffy grey
of the cygnet is beginning to turn dark
along its neck.
It is now diving down
to pull up its own grass,
growing larger
as the water falls.
Nearby
there is a single coot.
And this day,
the cygnet
turns to the coot
and shoos it off.
Waiting on the Waders
Last weekend we see a ngalkaning
the nankeen rufous night heron
flying by
in the daytime
over the lake.
Two days ago I spotted a single janjarak
black-winged stilt
huddled by the slowly-growing
shoreline on the south end
beneath the figs.
Yesterday I saw a little cloud
of four small dots
flying low across the water
from the north,
in little gasping flaps.
Four janjarak.
While off to the eastern edge,
in the furthest corner of my eye,
all elegant and white,
koorodoor the great
egret.
Today, in the northern section,
a single rufous heron,
drifted by,
followed by his gentle
honkinsh sound.
All these last months
the water has been so high
that even kwirlam the swamphen
has been forced up
onto the golf course
and parks, eating mown grass.
When they do swim, they are so slow,
their feet not webbed—
if they have chicks, the chicks
are faster.
The lake is now coming slightly off its highest tide,
the breathing in past its deepest depth.
The very top of the pole of the measuring gauge
not quite met. Somewhere between 2.1 and 2.2 metres
now dipping, slightly,
though we’re not quite down to numbers—
the last one being 2 metres flat.
And yet, the very first of the waders—
not yet any wayan white-faced herons—
beginning to come back
with the first
of the lake’s edges.
Kadar the Musk Duck
A couple of days ago
I stood by the gazebo
as kadar the musk duck preened itself
to the east.
A couple of people joined me there—
a girl and her mother.
They were looking at it,
wondering what it was.
Without asking me specifically
I volunteered up:
“It’s a musk duck.”
She repeated it:
“Musk duck.”
And asked:
“Is it only the males
who have that flap?”
A good question,
I thought to myself.
“Yes, and that one is pretty small,
so I guess it’s an adolescent.”
“I’ve never seen one before.”
“The first time I saw one,
I thought it was a platypus.”
We look a little longer
and eventually they go their way.
Today, kadar is back,
coming up out of the murky
depths, just as a woman
and her elderly mother
arrive at the gazebo.
This time I resolve to say nothing
unless asked, feeling I might sometimes
step on others’ freedom
of discovery.
But as I do this, the woman asks me:
“Has it got something in its mouth?”
“No, that’s its bill flap or lobe.
Sometimes he puffs it up for his
call.”
“Wow, I’ve never seen one before.”
“He spends a large amount of time
under water.”
A Kwirlam Tail
Yesterday I walked the path on the southern edge of the lake
under the Moreton Bay figs, past
where yet the Pacific black ducks,
marangana the wood ducks,
maali the swan and cygnets,
kidjibroon the coot,
and maybe a few others,
like ngoonan the grey teal,
have been overdosing on falling figs
that land in the water with a plop.
From there I stayed under the figs,
eventually cutting my own path
through where they sprayed ‘slasher’—
an organic weed burner a few weeks back—
closer to the fenceline by the water’s edge,
towards the jetty.
At one point, not far from the jetty, under the final fig
to the west, I felt something following me,
and turned to find kwirlam the purple swamp hen
on my tail. I wouldn’t say chasing, necessarily, for when
I stopped and turned around he also stopped
and looked at me. Then when
I walked, he too began to walk, drawing slightly closer.
This happened a couple of times.
At first I wasn’t sure if he was looking for things
in my upturned footprints,
or if he thought I might have food,
or if I’d come a bit too close to some of his young.
In any case, I’d never seen him do this to anyone
before.
Arriving at the jetty, he seemed to peel off and go about
his business.
Today, I found myself headed in a similar direction,
without thinking.
And there, standing under the trunk of the fig,
was kwirlam.
I immediately apologised, knowing that this lake is his—
one of the few birds that remains all dry summer—
and returned to the path.
Re-arriving at the jetty I looked back along the fenceline
as he walked along it also. And there, between him and another hen
were a couple of tiny chicks, all black.
Carnage of Crows
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.
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.
John Stubley 