Down on the beach for two days in a row: a lower line of small bay ridges forming smaller bays within the larger bay of Leighton Beach to Cables Station. The tide is morning low, with little variation with the mid-sky moon. The angle of the slope from flat sand down to the water is pretty gradual, 30 degrees or less, and there is a hint of bay-ridge remnants from a formerly higher tide further up the slope. Around mid bay, between the lower ridges, I notice a couple of cliff faces forming—places where the long, slow, back-and-forth of gradual tide—stormless, swell-less—leans into a kind of cliff-barrier where the water, due to what it has created in the sand, is unable to rise any higher; a cliff place where water starts to cut horizontally into the sand, rather than wash over and flatten it out, as it does further north.
Category Archives: Shoreline Poetics
Sting Ray
Walking along the ocean shoreline Sunday morning. And between the handful of scattered swimmers spread out between Leighton Beach and Cables Station I see, moving south to north, a small dark cloud. The thought ‘sting ray’ immediately comes to mind. The black cloud continues moving along the base of the light blue water, about ten metres out. It does not surface for air. Baamba sting ray it must be. Not the small ones I see often down in Geograph Bay, nor the massive ones down in Hamelin Bay, but the ones about the same size I used to see swimming the reefs between Cottesloe and North Cottesloe about twenty years ago.
Dolphins and Pelicans
We’re walking upriver with a friend, and a strong south south westerly behind us. From the north west approaches boodalung the pelican, not flapping, but gliding into the wind; he gradually descends down towards the river. And down there we see one, two, three, four at least dolphins moving fast along the western edge of the sandbar; fishing, I assume. The dolphins are spread out, and gradually heading downriver. I look up again and see three more boodalung coming in from the north, flying in formation, gradually descending down onto the water above the sandbar, where they make a watery landing. This happens while the dolphins head steadily downriver along the edge of the sandbar, moving away from a boat that pursues, and past a couple of stationary others, as we head upriver at angles to the wind when the river curves and while the sun sets behind us.
Our friend is from the north also, and heads back that way tomorrow.
Kakka Bakka
Saturday morning at the lake again. My wife Katie and I are at the gazebo. And over on the (re)new(ed) eastern shoreline—a spit formerly watery, now dry—next to an all-black swan, sits an all-white bird, about two-thirds the size of his neighbour. There are also some ibis nearby in their melaleuca perch; but almost immediately I ‘know’ the all-white bird is kakka bakka—the western spoonbill. He is preening and pruning his white feathers with his long white bill which was, at first, unseen, but which comes gradually into greater view, with the spooned-out tip on its end.
The ibis with their long, curved, almost-proboscis-like bills good for spearing down deep into cracks and softer earth; the spoonbill with a long straight bill with rounded tip good for wide swinging arcs over slightly submerged ground, like a prospector surveying for gold.
Fencing the Lake
For some reason my attention is drawn again to the fenceline in the lake today. Its old posts run in a line north to south in the southern part of the lake, sticking now—levels at 1.26 metres—out of the water. Knowing some of all that this lake is, or all of some of what it is, it definitely reveals a kind of thinking of that time which decided it was a good idea to put a fenceline in…and right through its centre, like a kind of dividing of life. Someone or someones thought it was a good idea at the time, and it still lives there, in grey-post, faded-timber retrospect.
And now, in writing this, I’m also reminded of the fence they put up between the viewing area and the shoreline on the south eastern side. I remember that fence appeared one day with a sign that said “Temporary Fence.” Eventually the sign disappeared.
Thursday at the Lake
The birds at the lake have adopted the regular pattern of recent days and weeks. In the centre it is mostly coots, a few hardheads, and maybe a couple of shelducks. Towards the north, on dead tree stumps, are a couple of kakak cormorants. Manatj also find dead log spots to walk their white feathers down to the water. The rest of the birds, though—mostly ducks—stick to the more shallow edges, occasionally flying forward in a crowd towards the lake’s centre if anyone pauses too long on the walkway, or doubles back; in there are teals, shovelers, pink ears, black ducks, but also stilts. I walk the edge today around to the jetty, and resting there on the bank are some black ducks as well as wood ducks; one black duck has a couple of young with it still. A black winged stilt stands on the nesting spot left by a coot at the end of the jetty. He flies off when I arrive, doubles back around, makes a lot of complaining noise while bobbing his head up and down, lands on the shore to the west, then retakes his position once I leave. Water levels are 1.27 metres and falling.
I walk towards the gazebo—there are maleleucas flowering white and full along the branches. A swan sticks its head up above the seeds of the grasses. An ibis is busy in the grass further north. A night heron lands on the bush with other ibis. At the gazebo I notice an abandoned swan’s nest with another stilt perched upon it. A coot has some new chicks. Two swans dance slowly together while another eats grass nearby, not far from four small cygnets eating too.
More stilts walk high in the north west shallows. There are many high pitched songs amongst the tuarts to the north of the lake. And near the north east corner a cloud of white-tailed black cockatoos fly over.
Amongst it all, there are boys playing cricket, and a girls school on some kind of scavenger hunt with nature-based observation stations scattered around the lake; they seem to notice some lorikeets, but not the cockatoos. The eucalypts in the park are shedding their kindling bark for the fire of summer. Further into the parkland as I approach the car, a woman sits on a bench—she has about seven dogs running around nearby, one of whom wishes to say hello. And then I pass by a group of corellas in the grass eating the seeds of a yellow flower like cat’s claw—a kind of smaller dandelion; they go past the full flowers themselves, leaving them, but instead specifically seeking out the the older ones that have gone to seed.
Harrier Harassed Again
Fin and I are standing at the south end of the lake, between fig trees. The wind is northerly. It’s a clear sky above with some stratus to the north that will increase rapidly—grey above by mid morning and rain by the middle of the day. But we’re here now, with the usual ducks and other customers. Then all of a sudden, scattering from the shore of the south east corner and from the norther part of the lake—whole clouds of birds lift off. I look for the cause of all this, and see the long, slow, orange wingspan and fingered feathers on wing edges of what I assume is a swamp harrier. He glides and flaps slowly, yet somewhat awkwardly, like a big jumbo coming into land. He’s not high though, but level with the other birds, flying just past the middle of the like, slightly on the western side. He seems close to a cloud of ducks—mostly teals I suppose—but he doesn’t give chase to any. There are also no seagulls to give chase to him today, and no koolbardie magpies close by. It is wardong the crow that harasses the harrier this time. He seeks refuge in a small clump of reeds usually frequented by some warblers on the eastern edge. But when he takes off again the crows are at him. He flies further north, and awkwardly alights where the ibis roost—a couple move off and give him space. The crows back away, until he takes off again, and then they’re at him once more. And then we lose him and the whole company as they head further north.
The Moment it Turns
Out walking before the rain and maybe storm. I start to walk one way because the wind is from the south west—ripples on the river point the way. But then the wind dies suddenly, and the river is calm. There are two or three dolphins in the shallows of the sandbar, with not enough water to fully dive; they stream across it like sharks, and double back in strange directions at times, likely hunting fish. The whole scene is metallic and grey. I decide to turn and walk downriver now that it’s calmer. Rain starts to fall in fat, slow drops. I hear the sound of a pied oyster catcher somewhere on the river. And then the sound of a black faced cuckooshrike up ahead, all shrill and high; I spy him at the top of a tree, looking down. The rain increases. I swing back for home. The rain stays, but slow, and I’m still not that wet when I arrive. I head out again soon after with my wife when she gets home, and notice that now the wind has swung fully to the north, now blowing in gusts. Then out of the wind and rain appears our nephew, fresh and wet from the beach, smiling. We walk on, together, for a moment, but the umbrellas are no match for the sideways rain.
Flying Kite
Sunday evening, with a wind that has been offshore all day, Katie and I walk over to the pedestrian bridge above the trainline and watch the sunset. Also there, though not watching the sunset but the ground below us, is a black shouldered kite. He flies past us, hovers, head to the wind, looking straight down, flapping though otherwise perfectly still; then dropping hovering, flapping, dropping. His wings are white against the setting sun, but for his shoulders clearly dark.
He drops to the earth as the sun does, and as we turn for indoors.
Seethrough Lake
Some days the lake offers a clear view into things. There are levels to this—-depths. But you still have to look through the things of it. Like today: juvenile shelducks, more than one hardhead, a couple of small cormorants, corellas in a tree, wood ducks in the wood, swans and stilts at the jetty, crows lifting leaves with beaks under fig trees at the south end, the sound of djiddy djiddy with its young, wimbin and teals and bardoongooba ducks. Coots shoo swamphens. An adolescent shelduck shoos other ducks. Hardheads dive. And you remember the reed warbler, from before.
John Stubley 