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Other / 28.05.2014

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.

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Film Diary / 15.05.2014

Our 100th night shoot was put back by a day because of rain. As it is close to the end of the season, I didn’t want to have to wait until September to bring up the century. I managed to assemble an ad hoc team for our visit to Palm Grove National Park. It was full moon. There was hardly any insect noise compared with the strong background chirping we heard 8 days ago in MacDonald National Park. We saw plenty of Giant Panda Snails and a couple of Pademelons, plus native cockroaches and various species of ant. The highlights were filming a semi-slug which may be the third species we have seen (confirmation awaits expert opinion in due course) and a Tawny Frogmouth sitting on a branch close to the path. I also filmed a leggy fly which did not look like a Crane Fly. The rain, which cut our walk short, relented just as we came upon the Frogmouth. We will keep the season going as long as there are creatures to film.

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Website / 08.05.2014

One of the main reasons for expanding the website and enabling me to upload content was to boost the species data I supply to the EOL. Prior to the relaunch I entered 120 or so new species on the admin site. Andrew Nagy had to make them fit for purpose and head off a potential problem by reconciling the original XML files with the new ones. We duly sent the combined list to EOL who in return provided the link to my EOL gallery pages. Imagine my dismay when I discovered that most of the original files were missing. EOL pointed out an error which I carefully checked out and found that it only referred to two files. I discovered other errors on our part, but most of the files seemed to be correct. I selected 12 of them and asked EOL to tell me if the news concerning them was good or bad.  There was also a problem regarding missing videos. This was due to a mistake I made, which I have since corrected. An email from EOL arrived today confirming that the 12 files were OK and that the videos should be harvested within 2-3 days. We’ll… Read Complete Text

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Film Diary / 07.05.2014

We are one short of 100 night shoots. Not surprisingly, I find that I am not shooting as much footage as I used to because fewer new subjects present themselves. A recent shoot did yield a beetle, Saw Fly larvae, a large black millipede, a Brown Lacewing eating a Crane Fly and a pair of mating Crane Flies. However the two most recent shoots each provided a unique gem. On 23 April I filmed a katydid eating a fungus perhaps 10 -12 cm high growing out of the rainforest floor.This evening, near the start of the circuit in MacDonald National Park I filmed a small snail. With a low battery in the camera and a fully charged battery left in the car, I was tempting fate to provide a highlight which I might not have been able to film. As luck would have it, we were on our way out of the park when we saw a cricket burrowing into the earth, something we had not seen before and I filmed it for several minutes until the battery ran out.

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Other / 28.04.2014

Following our telephone conversation last week, I emailed Simon Smith of the National Film and Sound Archive today, summarising our discussion regarding providing data files of our Vimeo uploads for the 5 ½ years to the end of 2014. The NFSA has all my edited and scripted content.  The vimeo footage is edited for visuals and sound. Much of the material will be new to the NFSA. I currently have 203 videos on Vimeo and have compiled an additional  14 which Steve and I will be working on next week and beyond.

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Other / 28.04.2014

An email from Chris Taylor, who is based at Curtin University in Perth, arrived which confirmed that a frame I sent him yesterday was of a different Harvestman to the one he identified a couple of years ago. I filmed it in October 2013. He was only able to identify the family and pointed out that the group is long overdue a revision.

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Other / 25.04.2014

As flagged in my 8 April post, Steve and I completed work on Hugh’s video frames. So today I sent out the newsletter informing subscribers that the frames had been added to the  AERIAL 2001  album. The views tend to focus on the escarpment with its gorges and shelf land, rather than on the plateau which are the main focus of Hugh’s aerial photos.

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Film Diary / 23.04.2014

A stranger, who turned out to be a delightful man in his late eighties, phoned me today alerting me about Rose Robins attracted to a tree outside his bedroom window. Seeing as many as 4 or 5 at a time was new to him, since one usually sees a solitary bird. I timed my visit for late afternoon and was rewarded with a lone female who posed in full view instead of flitting about. Years ago I was taken by surprise by a Rose Robin at my favourite bird bath. It didn’t hang around long enough for me to get clear footage.

 

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Other / 22.04.2014

I have received emails from Melbourne IT reminding me to renew my domain names, starting 3 months out from the 17 May expiry date. I tried to renew them on line today, only to discover that the charge for each domain was $146, $6 more than I paid for both last time. I resorted to phoning and the upshot was that I renewed the domain names for $140 until 17 May 2016.

 

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Other / 08.04.2014

Today I sent out a newsletter announcing a new album called  AERIAL 2001, the first since the launch of my revised website. I am an aerial photo freak. I just love the vantage point. The initial images are photos by Hugh Alexander. I intend to add Hugh’s video frames in due course. I advise using the Album in conjunction with the maps on the Tamborine Mountain Page.