Following a phone call and email exchange, I today heard from Annie Breslin, who has replaced Simon Smith as my curator at the National Film & Sound Archive, that they will take my collection of species videos. Steve and I will have to add taxonomic information to each opening title. Simon, who was a pleasure to deal with, had briefed Annie about my intention to provide data files of the vimeo videos.
Today Michelle Ryan and Greg Czechura of the Queensland Museum visited me as arranged last month, to check out the scope of my image library with a view to accepting it as a donation to the Museum. Greg has identified frogs for me over the years, so it was good to put a face to the name. They liked what they saw and we discussed data transfer requirements and the need for a formal deed of gift. I have undertaken to add taxonomic and location information to the written support material. It looks as if my image library has found a good home. The Museum is in the process of putting its huge image collection online in 2016.
The inestimable Peter Hendry sometimes refers a tricky moth to a lepidopterist contact at the CSIRO (Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation). Following an exchange of emails he identified one moth and regarding another made the intriguing point that it was a well known species on the mountain and in Lamington National Park but had not been named. The first photo of the moth he identified showed tuft scales on the hind wings the like of which I hadn’t recalled seeing before. Once he received photos of the whole moth and a close up the head facing the camera, he was able to identify it. In so doing he made two fascinating points. One was that the scale tufts were much less evident in a long dead specimen in a collection than on a live moth and the other was that the species has been associated with mangroves overseas and he wondered where mine came from. Peter replied that there are mangroves in nearby rivers.
Today I received a phone call from Michelle Ryan of the Queensland Museum to arrange a meeting at my place next month to discuss my offer to donate my image library to the museum. I have received so much help over the years from a number of its curators identifying fauna, that wishing to give something back, I made the offer to Michelle a few weeks ago. At today’s count there are 3,530 video frames and 346 PANCAM photos in my image library. Locating it at the Queensland Museum would mean that all the elements of my work would be properly conserved, a most gratifying outcome.
A category 5 tropical cyclone is heading for the central Queensland coast, with torrential rain forecast for this part of the world later today and for the following 2 days. I therefore took my camera to Steve so that he can attempt to capture the 6 latest completed tapes. He needs to overcome the camera’s fire wire problem which has recently reappeared. Steve also confirmed that the auto focus is faulty and unable to deliver wide shots which was self-evident from recent footage. I need wide shots to define the setting of a visual story. The right side of the frame is sharp, the left side is soft. Closer and zoom shots are not affected, but the situation is not good. I am waiting to hear if fixing the fault would be almost as costly as buying a new camera. I don’t want to be minus the camera any longer than the duration of the bad weather, because I am making up for lost time when I was without the camera for 3 months last Summer. I am apprehensive that the weather may be a reprise of the ex-cyclone that devastated the mountain just over 2 years ago, inter alia plunging our… Read Complete Text
In an email today, Peter Hendry confirmed that I have at last photographed a Cyana meyricki moth, the one that emerges from a cage built by the caterpillar out of its own hairs. I have filmed several of the cages in different locations and the actual caterpillar in the same place where, on 27 November, I photographed the moth. Having downloaded the image onto my hard drive yesterday, I had my doubts that it was a moth and was about to include it in my Other Fauna album, when I thought I should first check with Peter and sent him the photo. At the time I remember thinking that it might have been a Cyana meyricki moth. It flew away as I was on the point of taking another photo and I wasn’t sure my first effort was okay.
With the ten new videos Steve and I have completed appearing on site today, my total number of videos has passed the 275 mark. The ten are the last in a run of 79 HD species videos to add to the previous run of 47 HD species videos. I am now about to start shot- selecting a third run.
It was all the more gratifying to receive an email from Don-herbison Evans fully identifying a caterpillar with a most striking appearance I filmed recently at night. It was perhaps 6 cm long, with brown tufts on its light grey back and very long hairs. It had blue dots on its sides. I film many caterpillars, mostly at night. They are intriguing creatures, but notoriously more difficult to identify from a video frame than the adult moth or butterfly. If Peter Hendry offers an identification of a caterpillar it is usually only to a moth family. Don is an expert on lepidoptera and tends to request that I send him the caterpillar rather than a video frame of it. When experts request live specimens I have to point out that I carry camera and tripod and not collecting paraphernalia.
While in London, I decided to visit the Olympic Park in Stratford because it was within such easy reach and pop into an old haunt of mine nearby, the Theatre Royal, where the legendary Joan Littlewood was artistic director from 1953 to 1979. Joan and I became friends because of my work with a group of young artists who devoted immense creative energy to ephemeral art in the form of multi-media events, performance art and street theatre. At the Theatre Royal I happened to meet Jan Sharkey-Dodds who is Head of Young People’s Work and mentioned my connection to Joan and her partner Gerry Raffles. I also told her that I had footage of Joan at one of our outdoor events staged in June 1968 and offered to send a copy to the theatre. In due course I was contacted by the archivist, the actor Murray Melvin and today he emailed me that the DVD had arrived. If I understood Jan rightly, Joan’s papers are kept at the theatre for ease of access, although I doubt a theatre can provide the conditions to properly preserve papers and artefacts of such importance.