I received an email from an expert on lichen in reply to my query about Image 12 on Gallery Page 8. He was able to identify three different species of lichen on the one small area of tree bark – amazing.
For the past fortnight I have been filming Wompoo Pidgeons in a Moreton Bay fig tree adjacent to the house on whose lawn and drive I have filmed the pademelons. The tree merges into the rainforest of Palm Grove National Park. Wompoo Pigeons are typical of the breed in Australia, visually striking and of an imposing size, particularly this species which has a pale grey head and neck, green wings with a yellow band, a purple breast and yellow abdomen. The tree is as much a favourite place of the pigeons as the lawn is of the small marsupials; there must be twenty or so birds in its canopy. They are elusive to film and always stay a long way from the camera.
Because of my wish to become an EOL Content Partner, I need to identify as many of the species on my Gallery pages as possible and emailed a request list to the Inquiry Centre at the Queensland Museum. I received a very prompt reply, directing my plant species queries to the Brisbane Herbarium and advising me that the fauna identification may take some time. I also emailed a mycologist whom I met at a forum in Brisbane (see blog entry for 25-27 June 2007) for help with identifying fungi, and a Mountain resident who is an expert on grasses.
Steve posted ten new video clips on my YouTube Channel. also created a new Vimeo Channel for me and posted the clips there too. Six of the clips form a Night Life series and of the others, one introduces Wollubinia Dorsii, the freshwater turtle officially announced to science in January this year and named after my friend Marcus Dorse.
I spoke to Lenore Thiele the other day to find out if she had made any progress identifying a most unusual fungus I filmed in the rainforest and she mentioned that she had seen pademelons (the smallest kangaroo-like marsupials) grazing on the lawn of a house next to Palm Grove National Park. Sure enough, when I had a look yesterday some pademelons were there. Today I had my camera with me and filmed pademelons on the lawn and in the bush land adjoining the house. The people renting the house told me that they had counted as many as 17 pademelons on the property at one time. Although you can frequently hear pademelons in the park, you have to be very lucky to film any (see Film Diary 11 February), so I’ll make a point of returning to the house.
(PS 5 July)
I have now accumulated about 90 minutes of pademelon footage, including some of a young joey poking its head out of its mother’s pouch.
On the 26th I received an email from Katja, Species Pages Coordinator for The Encyclopedia of Life (EOL), in reply to an email I sent to EOL some time back expressing my interest in contributing to the project. The remit of EOL is to illustrate and document every species known to science. It has some heavyweight cornerstone institutions and a steering committee on which equally illustrious institutions are represented.
The options Katja mentioned prompted me to send her an email telling her about my video archive and asking whether video contributions could be included, whether the EOL structure allowed for records of the biodiversity of ‘One Small Place on Earth’, such as Tamborine Mountain or the Galapagos Islands, and asking her to advise me on the best way I could contribute.
Her reply was most gratifying, stating that I have a great collection of images and videos on my site which she would be very interested in having on EOL, that EOL considers video a very important medium for the documentation of biodiversity and that the best way I could contribute would be to register as a Content Partner. The email exchange has… Read Complete Text
I emailed Steve the frames from Tape 27, which I selected today, for him to capture to complete Stills 9, bringing the total number of images to 266. Half the Tape 27 images are night frames (I am still filming Tape 28), so you can see how up to date Stills 9 is. Christina will be able to select the best images to add to the Gallery. I hope we can create a gallery page just of night images.
Today I emailed Steve the material from Tape 27 to be added to the new clips we want to put on YouTube and Vimeo. The email included titles.
I set up my camera to film the usual birdbath in the Wild Garden this afternoon. Activity was intermittent, but during the last flurry, a Rose Robin appeared frame left and after splashing about for maybe 20 seconds or so, (I haven’t seen the footage yet) flew off frame right. This was another new species for the archive.
This evening Steve and I worked on the Darryl Jones interview at his place. Steve had completed most of the editing and needs me to film a brief cut-away sequence to help finish the edit.