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Other / 21.05.2017

An email from Showrunner Productions in Perth arrived this evening – the third time they have contacted me. They are interested in using footage from my videos of assassin bugs for their latest series which focuses on Latin American animals. Typically, the email mentioned an urgent deadline while requesting high resolution files. I replied immediately refusing permission because the assassin bugs in my videos are Australian species.

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Film Diary / 17.05.2017

We toasted the 150th walk with a half bottle of champagne at the start of the 151st because Jaap, who spotlighted the very first walk, was able to accompany Mark, Lumart and me in Palm Grove on what may be this season’s last walk. The night was beautiful, the air still. I filmed a fungus and ants, a mayfly with 3 tail cerci (long filaments attached to the tip of the abdomen), a small stick insect on a leaf, a ‘new’ spider and two snails. We saw, but didn’t film, a nocturnal vignette. A large ant was wandering on an earth bank dotted with the burrows of several trapdoor spiders, until it came within range of a small spider lying in wait at the entrance to its burrow. In an instantaneous, single movement the spider seized the hapless ant and vanished into the depths with its prey. This triggered the door to snap shut on the carnage so that one could be excused for thinking it had never happened.

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Film Diary, Other / 08.05.2017

This evening I received an email identifying a roosting bird I had recently filmed at night in rainforest. It was a new species for the archive. This, I had not expected. Finding a new species of bird to film is increasingly rare. Whereas the opposite appears to be true with moths. Encountering a juvenile Pacific Heron a few weeks ago, having long before filmed an adult, was exciting. But a new species beats that.

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Film Diary / 03.05.2017

Tonight at The Knoll, Mark and Lumart were present on the 150th night filming walk. The series began at the end of December 2007. The intention is to go on a walk once a week. However, we do not film during the cooler months and crew crying off and rain on the night drastically affects the number of occasions we manage to film. The total does not include the rare instances when I didn’t film anything at all. I feared this might be the case tonight until we saw a giant panda snail devouring a fungus which was part of an interesting cluster, so I filmed both. I also filmed some tiny fungi and a slime mould. After cyclone Debbie there is plenty of water in the mountain’s creeks. I hoped to see the eel, whose presence in Sandy Creek we never suspected until it appeared just over two years ago in a pool which formed immediately downstream of the bridge thanks to ex-cyclone Oswald. Alas, there was no sign of the eel in the pool. To our great joy it was spotted in the pool immediately upstream of the bridge, but did not linger long enough for me… Read Complete Text

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Other / 29.04.2017

The American production house wanted me to sign away my peace of mind in exchange for not being able to guarantee that I would be mentioned in the credits. Discovery Channel Canada submitted a similar release form. I refused to sign it because it did not include a credit for my footage. Today I received a new form with a ‘Special Thanks: Peter Kuttner’ clause which I duly signed and returned.

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Other / 26.04.2017

The touch screen on my new Canon developed a fault at the end of March. Today I collected a replacement from Videopro in Brisbane and can expect to be without my camera for a minimum of three weeks. Fortunately the viewfinder and filming were not affected by the fault.

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Other / 19.04.2017

An email arrived from a producer who works on a science news program called Daily Planet on Discovery Channel, Canada. He is producing a story on animals that use nets to catch their prey. He came across my videos of net-casting spiders on vimeo and wondered if he could use my footage. Trawling through my vimeo pages I found four videos devoted to three species of spiders, all filmed at night. I am inclined to give him the go-ahead provided I’m credited as the videographer. A few years ago an American production house wanted to use my footage but the agreement they asked me to sign put me off. We’ll see what transpires with this lot.

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Film Diary / 12.04.2017

Night filming with Jaap and Mark in Joalah is only worth noting because it was the first such foray  since February 22nd due mainly to crew availability and only one rainy night. I filmed a moth, a spiny rainforest katydid instar, a carpet python and a snail which looked new to me.

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My Travels / 11.04.2017

This morning I booked our flights to Easter Island and beyond and paid the deposit on resort accommodation there. Simon is joining me on my trip and wanted to include Buenos Aires. We shall also be overnighting in Santiago between destinations. I want to go to Easter Island because of its remoteness, having been inspired by a tv series about Britain’s overseas territories which include 3 of the remotest inhabited spots on earth. Easter Island, although it belongs to Chile, is in that august company. At Art School in the ‘60s I created a totem poll inspired by a moai in the British Museum. Little did I imagine then, that I would have the prospect of visiting its place of origin more than five decades later.

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Film Diary / 08.04.2017

The bolls on the cotton shrubs in the mountain garden have opened during the past two or three weeks, over two months after I photographed a flower. The property owners feared I might miss out on the bugs which infest the shrub until they noticed one and then another. I had to look carefully to find them. I returned with my camera and filmed a female Cotton Harlequin Bug and a lone nymph which is more spectacularly coloured than the adults. The females grow to a length of 20 mm.