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Film Diary / 15.02.2012

Night filming 65, with Dan and Jaap and his partner Louise. This was Jaap’s last night shoot for the foreseeable future, because he and Louise have embarked on their journey of discovery around Australia aboard their converted bus. In honour of Jaap giving me his spotlight when he left the mountain last September I ordered a new reflector which Mark expertly fitted the other day. I filmed a beetle, an ants nest in a hollow log, a Net-casting spider with its net beautifully spread to engulf unsuspecting prey crawling beneath it and an Earth Star fungus. Normally I don’t film fungi at night, but Earth Stars are short-lived.

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Film Diary / 22.01.2012

The second and concluding day of filming a nest of Black-faced Monarchs from the deck of a high-set house which resulted in the camera being just slightly below nest level. Two adults kept busy feeding 3 chicks. Yesterday I briefly filmed a Grey Goshawk on a nearby tree, possibly one of the fledglings from the nest I filmed last November.

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Film Diary / 18.01.2012

Today I filmed some large white fungi in a garden. As often when I film fungi, I noticed some ant activity, though not a lone ant crawling over and under the cap, but the occupants of a nest scurrying among the blades of grass. The trick for me was to locate an area of grass used by a sufficient number of ants and large enough to show the paths they took without the individual ants being too small for me to adequately reveal their anatomy.

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Film Diary / 10.01.2012

Mark and I went filming in Witches Falls National Park on our quest for finding Harvestmen in daylight. I filmed a rather good fungus, a Donuca rubropicta moth for the first time in rainforest, a pretty red Shield Bug, another moth which was on a rock and so beautifully disguised that I thought it was part of the lichen on which it was resting, and male and female Harvestmen. We first saw a male here on a night shoot in February 2011.

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Film Diary / 28.12.2011

For our last night shoot of 2011 we went to the Knoll. I filmed an ethereal looking katydid or grasshopper, a sweet, diminutive roosting bird on the end of a branch above the path and a female Harvestman, which, being smaller and duller in colour, is more difficult to film than the male.

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Film Diary / 23.12.2011

For the first time since April 16, I filmed new moths on the garage at Central Avenue. The lights had been left off, thus killing my supply of any kind of moth. I filmed one large moth laying her eggs on the side wall, a rather unpromising spot.

 

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Film Diary / 17.12.2011

I thought it about time to see if I could encounter Harvestmen during the day, so I went to the Knoll on the 15th and drew a blank, but yesterday in Joalah, I filmed four male and two female Harvestmen on a rock next to the path near Curtis Falls. Even more spectacularly, today I filmed six males in a group on a rock on level ground in Palm Grove. A seventh male was just round the corner. Both here and in Joalah, I thought my eyes wouldn't be up to spying the arachnids

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Film Diary / 30.11.2011

Our night filming took place during a rain shower and under wet conditions, so that everyone present was more concerned about fighting off leeches than spotting animals. Dan's girlfriend Jenny, kindly removed a number of leeches from my clothes. Standing still filming and holding a spotlight is a recipe for leech encroachment. I filmed a different semi-slug to the ubiquitous Black-spotted variety. Strange to think that when I first encountered it, I thought the Black-spotted Semi-slug might be a rarity. It remains one of my nightime favourites. I didn't film a Brown Tree snake that we saw. When I got home and took my trousers off I discovered I had 4 leeches camped round my waist, 3 in front and 1 behind. PS I am proud of the fact that I managed to stem the flow of blood in such a way that neither my make-shift night wear or my bedclothes had blood on them when I woke up next morning.

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Film Diary / 09.11.2011

Night filming in the Knoll National Park with Mark and Dan. A good haul which included a male Harvestman, a Black-spotted Semi-slug, a Giant Water Spider and one of Australia's largest ant species, highlighted by a large Great Barred Frog with only one eye and a very docile Small-eyed Snake which fortunately for me, preferred the path to the undergrowth. This species is listed as venomous and dangerous.

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Film Diary / 04.11.2011

Following a phone call from Jenny Peat, I filmed 2 Grey Goshawk chicks and an adult, on their nest some 20 metres up in a tree. The adult left the chicks to their own devices and only put in two appearances in over two hours, one fleeting, the other allowing me to get some hopefully good footage. One or other or both of the chicks were visible the whole time.