30 Dec 2014 FILM DIARY

Last week, with Mark back spotlighting because it is school holiday time, I copped the first leech of the current season, where else but in Palm Grove. I filmed an Eastern Small-eyed Snake on the move, a female scale insect, larger than the one I filmed in 2010 and round not elongated, plus a new lacewing. Tonight we returned to Joalah with an outsize party of nine consisting of 7 crew members and two guests of Jaap’s. For the same reason that Mark was spotlighting, Dan was back carrying the tripod and using his young eyes and his zoological  training to great effect. The night was hot and humid and after yet more rain the ground was soft. Jaap spotted another of the round scale insects, smaller than last week’s. We saw so many creatures – eels, a catfish, Giant Water Spiders, snails, millipedes, a large caterpillar, glow worms, a snake, beetles, a stick insect nymph, a Short-eared Possum. But the highlight for me was filming a Powerful Spiny Crayfish, a creature I had never seen, which Dan discovered walking along the path near Curtis Falls. With its 15 cm body length and menacing claws, it is appropriately named. What a magical conclusion to 2014.