It’s amazing how creatures can take hold of you. About a month ago Hugh Alexander noticed a daddy long legs-like creature when we were night filming in the Knoll NP. It had a tiny body and immensely long legs, but what was utterly remarkable was what we took to be eye stalks, many times its body length. None of us had ever seen anything like it. Well, today we saw 3 in all, at the same spot on rocks next to the path; the third on our way back. In the meantime we found out a bit about harvestmen, but nothing about the ones Hugh discovered. Harvestmen are arachnids (8 legged). Their bodies are unsegmented and the stalks are sexual organs. To totally dombfound us, the third specimen’s stalks had an equally long extension forming a right angle.

Maintaining weekly night filming sessions, we returned to the Knoll National Park. I filmed some intriguing small beetles, a large hunting spider devouring its prey and one of the strangest creatures I have filmed on our night jaunts. It was a daddy long-legs with huge eye-stalks and tricky to film because there wasn’t much of substance on which to focus. It was on an earth bank. Its second pair of legs were inordinately long. We’ll have to research what species it is.

I finally filmed a large millipede.

PS  The daddy long-legs is a species of Harvestman. We are still trying to find out which. Harvestmen don’t have a segmented body or spin a web, though they do have eight legs.

I filmed two moths of a species new to me on the Central Avenue garage and then did some night filming in Palm Grove National Park in mizzle. I filmed a Grey Huntsman Spider, a small moth, a white spider in its web and two large specimens of the Giant King Cricket; the antennae of the second, stirred by a fair breeze, lit up against the dark. By now the rain was piercing the canopy and I had to stop filming.

This was our second night filming session of the season, just six days after the first. We went to the Knoll National Park and I filmed a Richmond River Snail, which has a conical shell; two eye-catching caterpillars suspended on threads; a glow worm curtain; a bush rat which miraculously clung to a bush for several minutes, even repositioning itself before moving on at an unhurried pace; a Black Spotted Semi-Slug, one of my favourite denizens of our rainforest; and a Net-Casting Spider which I had never previously encountered. It was much smaller than I had anticipated and I managed to get some footage of its net, which it appeared to consume.

I have been able to film at night on a weekly basis, which is very gratifying given that I am unable to film in the rain and we have had constant showery weather. This time we were in MacDonald National Park and I filmed snails, a fly and a pair of skinks, the female with eggs. The high point was filming two newly emerged Green Grocer Cicadas, the most common species round here.

We have had a lot of rain throughout the past two years. A spring-fed creek has regularly formed a pond in a dip in a small property not far from where I live. Late in the day I filmed a pair of Wood Ducks roosting and saw that they had ducklings. Eventually the ducklings emerged and even entered the water. There were ten of them. Then they returned to their mother and I filmed them all managing to fit beneath her wings, which appeared to even exceed those of an aircraft in their ability to extend.

PS  On November 10, I filmed nine ducklings and shortly thereafter they had moved to the property to the rear.

This was our second night filming session of the season, just six days after the first. We went to the Knoll National Park and I filmed a Richmond River Snail, which has a conical shell; two eye-catching caterpillars suspended on threads; a glow worm curtain; a bush rat which miraculously clung to a bush for several minutes, even repositioning itself before moving on at an unhurried pace; a Black Spotted Semi-Slug, one of my favourite denizens of our rainforest; and a Net-Casting Spider which I had never previously encountered. It was much smaller than I had anticipated and I managed to get some footage of its net, which it appeared to consume.

We always see swallows on the Mountain, flitting about the shops or perched on overhead wires. For the first time I had the opportunity to film these attractive birds.  I found an eminently filmable nest on top of the security alarm of a real estate office. The nest contained five young and both parents had all their work cut out feeding them.

A first for the archive: I filmed a Spotted Pardalote in the birdbath in the Wild Garden. I had never seen, let alone filmed one before.

I wanted to reprise a memorable shot of a vine, descending from the canopy and spanning Cedar Creek in Joalah National Park which I filmed in 1999. Because this entailed a lengthy walk, Mark kindly carried my tripod. Before we proceeded beyond the end of the designated walking track I filmed a number of vines. Thereafter we were still on a defined, if somewhat overgrown path, crossing and recrossing the creek. I had forgotten how beautiful and dramatic the scenery was in this part of the park. Given that it was winter, I filmed a surprising number of fungi. It seems that for fungi damp conditions are more important than warmth. Eventually the path was claimed by jungle and we were obliged to turn back. We saw no sign of the vine. I could not tell if we had passed the place where I filmed it or whether it lay tantalisingly, further down stream.