BACK BEHIND THE CAMERA

It became clear after attending the Wildscreen Festival in Bristol last October that in order to add to my archive I needed to buy an HD (High Definition) camera. I chose a Sony HVRV1P. It is a lot lighter than my trusty Canon XL1.

Editing my previous footage took three years. Remastering from digital tape to DVD and getting the website up and running took a further year. So I was delighted to resume filming at last, on 1st April.

My first subject was three Asian water buffaloes gracing a field next to a main road – rather exotic and picturesque. I made the mistake of immediately viewing the footage on an HD TV. The upshot was that having just forked out a tidy sum for the camera, I found myself forking out a whole lot more on an HD TV. Of course it would have been crazy to film in HD without being able to view the footage on an HD monitor.

The camera tapes run for 64 minutes. I have just started my fifth tape. I plan to add to the Archive one 60 minute DVD at a time. As before, all the species I film will be located on the Mountain.

Just as with Parts 1 to 6, I have had plenty of good fortune when filming. On the first tape I have lots of footage of the rather shy Wonga pigeon and the hereabouts uncommon Pacific heron. Previously I only had about 30 seconds of the pigeon and perhaps a minute of a rather distant heron.

Every few years the golden orb spiders cluster in groups of 40 or more. 2007 is such a year and I have extensive footage of two clusters, again next to a main road.

I have some bird species new to the Archive, filmed at a bird bath in the Wild Garden; a few good fungi and the beginning of a serious moth collection. Whereas there are hundreds of Australian butterflyspecies, there are thousands of moths.

Watch out for some pre-release HD segments on YouTube.