28 May 2014 ONE OFF

In thanking Leigh Winsor for confirming the identity of a Flatworm, footage of which comprises a forthcoming video, I made the point that whenever I film a lone individual of a species I have not seen before, I tend to think that there is bound to be another specimen somewhere, but where is that somewhere, I wonder. Which leads me to thinking about what the mountain’s population of a given species might be. How many Rainbow Lorikeets, which are plentiful, for instance, or Great-barred Frogs, of which we see many at night. The mean range across Australia of Short-beaked Echidnas is 40-60 ha. The one I filmed in the Knoll National Park could have been one of a pair or three, given the park’s roughly 127 ha area. The White-banded Noctuid Moth was the first spectacular moth I filmed. I did not see another for several years. Then I started to see them regularly and once filmed a group of 4 on the Central Avenue garage.