Bardoongooba the shoveler is back at the lake today for the first time since the earlier rains. Marangana the wood duck shoos with his mouth open each time I have seen him do it. The shelduck poises itself against a shoo from the coot, which does not come. Instead, coot shoos yet the Pacific black duck. Dooram dooram the singing honeyeater shoos djiddy djiddy the wagtail. The amount of grass is worth noting again—coming up thick and wide. No hardheads seen today after so many yesterday. A turtle puts its head above the water on a western section and looks my way for a long time, going back under when I eventually move. There are close to a dozen karak red-tailed cockatoos on the norther side of the lake eating the small nuts on a large, grey-smooth-bark eucalypt. And in the middle tree with owls a second adult can be seen.

In the centre of the lake today I count a group of eight darker brown and blackish ducks, sitting slightly lower on hte water, with what looks to be a kind of white tip on one end, and a white tip on the other. Until recently I might have assumed them to be bluebills out of clear sight at a distance. But I am now more able to join what I see to the concept ‘hardhead!’ and all seems well again. I have never seen this many in the centre of this lake (and still haven’t in the weeks following the writing of this.)

My raw notes say: Yet Pacific black duck with chicks all sizes (four small, three larger, a couple in between); kidjibroon the coot with chicks. Coot shoos yet; marangana the wood duck (quacking) shoos yet; coot shoos another yet; yet shoos another yet, while an adolescent yet retaliates, before being shoo-ed again.

There is much grass coming up through the watery surface of the lake; it is rising as the water is falling. While at the same time adolescent Maali the swan is patchily dropping his fluffy grey coat for full black feathers.

Some weeks after seeing an unidentified dead bird and feathers near the lake’s southern jetty, I find a handful of feathers of yet the Pacific black duck by the lake’s eastern lookout edge. (And then, some weeks later, I will find the small feathers of a chick also near the jetty, presumably another yet.)

Kambarang—birth season—and on the lake’s eastern edge we see the recently arrived coot chicks again, before something startles wayan the whitefaced heron, kooridor the egret and ngalkaning the night heron from the rushes to the north. I wonder where kadar the musk duck has got to, but soon she appears in front of the same rushes. A couple of pink eared ducks arrive in the middle of the lake from the north. Some black winged stilts stand further to the south. The owl whisperer details the exact location of a third tawny frogmouth, and I point out to her the reed warbler on a rush in the morning sunshine. She counters with an account of a bluebill to the north. I mention kadar. She trumps with a picture of a wagtail nest, like a woven felt cup, now gone—disappeared overnight!—but tells of another one next to the golfcourse to the south; my nephew and I find it a few minutes later, following a wagtail with stick in its mouth. There are Pacific black ducks and a couple of shelducks to the south. The owl whisperer also mentioned that the coot by the jetty who’s been sitting on her nest for many weeks has finally hatched some chicks, though more eggs remain. We watch for confirmation. Lake at 1.47 metres. And then yes, we see that some chicks have hatched all black with red-ish yellow heads, feathers spiky and not yet settled—they are small and come back under their mother’s weight and wings. Someone asks us—seeing only black feathers and a nest—if it is a swan. “Eurasian coot,” we reply, and soon walk on. More coot nests. We talk about Goethe’s observations on organs of perception. At the gazebo the blue bill is obvious in the morning light, his bill the colour of the sky; we watch as he paddles under the gazebo into the shade. A human mother, son and (likely) grandmother walk past us. They don’t notice the duck—they’re looking for swans; they lament not many being present. Somebody else arrives. We point out a turtle. The mother sees, and eventually the grandmother does too. Something changes. They try to show it to the son in the stroller. We point out the bluebill which returns to the light when we look for it amongst the shadows. There are swans and coots out there. My nephew and I talk about what happens when people finally see things—be they physical or immaterial, such as thoughts. Even for thoughts people say, “Ah! I see.” My nephew and I talk about Goethe’s observation that thinking can become a kind of perceiving, and perceiving a kind of thinking. We walk the curving western edge of the lake and see a Pacific duck with about eight chicks; a large group of coots further north; some more Pacific ducks and teals in the paperbark shadows. We cross to the dog park and find the owls still on their nests. And right before we reach the car, we go looking for the third owl that the whisperer promised. “Third tree on the right after the XXXX, not too high.” My nephew sees it first: another frogmouth waiting. All three owls are in eucalypts. Just another Wednesday at the lake.  

I have not seen or heard kadar the musk duck since I saw the female with chicks and heard the male’s poing five days ago. I wonder where they are. And as I walk today, at some far distant corner, I hear the sound of the male, clear and poing-niant, sounding its way—rippling and turning its way—across to me on the other side of the lake. Still here.