Though they mostly hung around through summer, things got pretty thin the last little while, as the water also thinned. But with rain, they have returned, and maybe slightly settled in. Janjarak the black-winged stilt is back, maybe the last to leave; wayan the white-faced heron, one of the last, now here again; sandpipers and dotterels— it’s hard to see exactly. Plus seven white ibis, three straw-necked and, for something different, two big shelducks plodding and poking around the water’s edges, not deep enough to swim. Then there are the djiddy djiddy wagtails who’ve taken an increased liking to the lake-bed in the warmer months; a ring necked lorikeet flies across. And then the friends who never left:, kwirlam the swamp hen, and even little cooli the buff banded rail not so shy. The birds, not quite circus animals, reappearing; in not quite the order they disappeared, but something like a mirroring, something like a breathing. 

The first rains of the cooler months have come—not too much, but enough to attract the first birds of the lake back again. There have been some who’ve hung around the puddles of water over the dryer months, like wayan the whitefaced heron, janjarak the black winged stilt, some dotterels or sandpiper maybe. But this morning after first rains is like the evening I came a few years ago after first rains back then, the last time the lake was close to drying out. Three wet winters in between have meant that this scene of birds returning to a dry lake has been missed. But this day it’s more or less the same as several years ago, when I came and saw a great flock of seagulls, usually so rarely here, pecking at the slightly damper chunks of mud, some welcome swallows flitting slightly above, and a group of ibis plucking up something with their long curved beaks from further down than the seagulls can reach among the growing water and mud. That was a few years ago. And on arriving today with my wife I’m surprised to find something of the same scene repeated—the water has not grown too much, but there are seagulls again picking away in or near the water, though only four; kanamit the welcome swallows are welcoming back to life, though only briefly, whatever they flit and fly around, lowdown, to catch; and the ibis too are back, in numbers, walking as they like, shooting their beaks down into the cracked gaps between dried mud bricks, now filling, at least a bit, with rain. They have all waited, as whatever they are eating has waited, through dryness, approaching death maybe, waiting, waiting for the rains to come, waiting for life to hatch and spring and begin (again) and end for some—waiting and then acting, knowing exactly what to do when those rains finally came. 

While further from the lake’s centre, kwirlam the swamp hen—the lakeside year-round, wet-or-dry, guardian—swims and washes in a private little puddle pool, today now deeper, by the rushes.

This day I’m driving back down the coast after visiting the lake, looking west over the ocean as the sun rises higher in the east. And out there, picking up some of that morning light on its white wings, I spy the long slow flapping of boodalung the pelican like a sliver cut out of the blue sky behind. He’s on his own, and slowly flapping but moving fast—faster than me sitting on 60km, winding my way down Marine Parade, over humps, maybe the odd detour for the first governor’s relative’s new mansion, a roundabout, apartments, traffic lights and so on, as boodalung simply flaps high over the water out there, keeping an eye on what’s coming—the dunes, the water of the river—maybe seeing already in mind’s eye the rock or stretch of water he’ll alight on. I lose him before the big red cranes of the port, and can’t be sure whether he went to the patch of limestone they put in place to save the train line from ships that loose their places in storms, or whether he maybe flew further on towards the southern side, or south beach or some of the other water places further south. I suspect he went up the river. And I wonder how far he’s come today, flying over all that coast, faster than I can drive.

Still no rain, but after a coupe of days of seeing no waterbirds at the lake—other than kwirlam the swamphen lake-guardian, and wayan the whitefaced heron—back today are two janjarak the black winged stilt as well as either sandpipers or dotterels, too small for me to see. And then, on walking back to the car, I spy a large halo around the sun, red on the inside stretching to violet on the out.

Early April and the paperbarks are flowering by the eastern edge of the lake, all light lemon yellow and inviting for the European honeybees. In there too are the introduced lorikeets squwarking and chirping, as I hear them even now inside my room, but much more so underneath the large tree by the lake’s edge. And then comes jakalak the red wattlebird, the soldier of birds around here—I don’t think I’ve ever seen it back down. But this day, this one lorikeet—all shrill and defensive over its paperbark flowers—shrieks and cries enough for jakalak to slowly walk backwards off the branch, until there’s nothing but air below his feet, and the wings spring into action again.

There’s a dilibrit mud lark that lives near the lake who likes to frequent the window mirrorglass by the cafés and gym, and there come to meet his own reflection. He sings to/at it, flies at it, pecks at it. His high pitched singing, the clacking of beak on glass, the black and white flurry of wings—all things to contend with in this morning meeting.

Just when I was saying to my friend that there are really no birds left at the dry lake except the swamphen, the heron, a sandpiper, some dotterels, rails, and a few black winged stilts, in fly a couple of raptors. “Raptors?” he asks. “Birds of prey.” In addition to all these walkers on wet and dry mud, we still have a couple of birds looking over; a couple of birds flying: the first a medium sized, compact, orange one, maybe a kestrel, maybe a juvenile hobby. “I’m not so good with my raptors,” I say. And then, a moment later into full view: a black-shouldered kite. “As I was saying, not much here, except…”

The only birds I can immediately see at the lake today are wayan the white faced heron, grey and thinly gentleman-like in his stick-like wanderings; and kwirlam the purple swamphen all dark and round, ball-like, close to the ground. Kwirlam is one of the few, if not the only bird, who’ll stay within the lake’s area when it dries completely. Not quite there yet, wayan stays around the lake, walking the drier and sometimes wetter areas; this day he’s half-way between both, quietly sizing up the insects in front of him. And from the south comes one kwirlm, hoofing along at a trot, surely not going to run right into wayan. But yes, we (me and wayan) both seem to see this at the last minute. I expect wayan to back away, this not being fully his place, but he raises up his wings, extends his neck and uncoils as if to throw his beak at kwirlam, spear like, and adding to this a kind of high-guttural cry. Kwirlam is taken aback, pauses, retreats a step, and then walks around wayan. Was I the only one who noticed this epic standoff between the nervous, head-like heron, and the round, digestive hen?