A few days ago I was talking to a resident of our unit block when I noticed a potter wasp daubing mud on the concrete in front of the neighbouring garage door. It didn’t look like the species Abispa splendida I had filmed over the years working on its nest at a friend’s nearby property. And so it proved, when I filmed and photographed it on the 25^th. By the time I filmed it today, the wasp had been identified by an entomologist at the Queensland Museum as Delta Latreillei. He was mystified by its daubing behaviour on the ground. There is little general online information about the wasp, which is mainly found in northern parts of the country, with isolated populations in southern areas, Tasmania excepted. A friend speculated that the wasp may have been disoriented because it was impaired. PS On 2.11.20 I photographed what looked like a properly constructed brood cell, with two abandoned circular bases next to it. I also emailed the entomologist, asking if he knew a specialist who might explain what is happening.

Robyn cut my hair the day before I left for Longreach. She told me that there was a shiny leaf stinging tree growing at the edge of the rainforest adjoining her back garden. We arranged that I would film the tree on my return, which I have just done. The tree had grown to a maximum height of about 4 metres. The bulk of its foliage was clear of obstructing vegetation and by filming close to the boundary fence, I managed to get some reasonable shots of the trunk. In a week or two I need to go to Palm Grove to check on the growth of the giant stinging tree I filmed last month.

Today I photographed another beautiful moth, not at the garage, but next to the window on my back landing. Thanks to Peter Hendry’s promptness in identifying it, the moth was confirmed as a female lacy emerald (of which species I have previously only filmed or photographed the eye-catching males) and not what I thought was a new species for my album. The lacy emerald, whether male or female, is spectacular. The ‘at last’ thrill of recognizing the female of a moth, after years of sighting only males, is still a vivid recollection. The lacy emerald is endemic in Australia. It occurs in Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria and Tasmania. Wingspan is 3 cm.     

Yesterday I visited Palm Grove National Park with my stills camera to see if I could find any giant stinging trees. At the place where the Moreton Bay fig tree was felled by ex-cyclone Oswald in January 2013, the path diverges. To the right it leads to the Curtis Road entrance near the State School, to the left it embarks on a circuit exiting at the start of Palm Grove Avenue, 200 metres before the main entrance to the park. There was a lone giant stinging tree growing to the left of the school path, its leaves too far off the ground for filming. I retraced my steps to the junction and took the circuit path. I had barely walked 50 metres when I caught sight of a giant stinging tree with four leaves, emerging next to the path. It was only a few centimetres above the earth. I took six photos of it.

Today I returned to film it, taking shot after shot. I concluded the shoot by spreading the tripod on the ground for a series of low angle views of the underside of the leaves and a close-up of the minute stinging hairs on the… Read Complete Text

Revisiting the December 2015 night footage of the shiny leaf stinging tree, having captured images of it with Steve the night before last, resolved me to film it in daylight, which I did this morning. The last time I filmed anything was in January this year. I was able to get a shot of the menacing stinging hairs which cover the surface of the leaf. The tree can attain a height of 20 metres, but now, as then, the only specimens I saw were more shrub than tree. The leaves are far smaller than those of the giant stinging tree, which are almost as broad as they are long. These trees had grown considerably in the five years since I filmed one. Also, their leaves had been almost ‘eaten to the bone’ by various insects, and because they were further from the ground, I don’t think I was able to get a definitive shot of the leaves’ stinging hairs, which cause excruciating pain when brushed against skin. The pain can persist for days, weeks, even months, which is not the case with the shiny leaf stinging tree, though contact is best avoided. Mature giant stinging trees can be 35… Read Complete Text

Thank god one of my first decisions when I began videoing, was to colour code my film diary according to subject matter. This allowed me to swiftly keep track of the footage over the years. A few months ago, I submitted an image to illustrate an article about aggregating golden orb spiders, for one of the mountain papers, to which I contribute fortnightly. The image was a wide shot, showing 50 or more spiders against a blue sky. Unfortunately, it could not be printed because the spiders were too small to register and I had not selected any medium shots of the footage. Tracking it down was made easier because I knew I had filmed aggregations in 2007 and 2008. Since then I have not seen any, either here or elsewhere. The omission prompted me to revisit the footage and capture additional shots for future reference.

A week ago, a web article about Australian stinging trees caused me to check my site to confirm that it included two of the three species mentioned in the article. It only included the giant stinging tree. I was certain I had filmed the shiny leaf stinging tree one night, but I… Read Complete Text

In Australia, the first day of Spring is September 1. Today I photographed an oak tree which had burst into leaf, whereas other oak trees in the street displayed mainly bare branches. The tree is most likely an English oak, Quercus robur. Australia has no native oaks and those found here are ornamental and lack the stature of oaks where they are endemic.