Mentioning to Hugh Alexander last week that the Gopro isn’t a suitable back-up camera, he pointed out that there were bound to be pocket sized cameras I can point and shoot at macro range. And so it proved when I collected some tapes for my Sony camera on Wednesday and checked out some small camcorders. I extended my enquiries the next day, comparing camcorders from 4 manufacturers. Steve agreed to meet me today to help assess which camcorder best met my requirements. The selection boiled down to a choice between two Panasonic camcorders. I ended up buying a V210M, a Manfrotto monopod, a Belkin HMDI cable, a 3 year extended warranty, all at a price over $100 lower than the top of the range Gopro. The camera has a 16 GB memory, but I am using a 16 GB card.
After being without my camera for 3 months during our Summer, I wanted to find out if a Gopro camera might provide suitable back-up equipment. Having borrowed a Gopro Hero 2 camera from a friend at the weekend, I dashed down to the highway the next day, bought a 16GB card and started to trial the camera in Driscoll Lane. I filmed insects on railings and tiny white flowers in a hedge, holding the camera a couple of inches or less away from my subject, then a bit further away, all the while unable to see what I was filming. Then I went to MacDonald National Park where I filmed some fungi, a strange dragonfly close to the ground, an ant and several walkthroughs, particularly featuring 2 huge adjacent Strangler Figs. The following day I filmed a couple of moths at the garage in Central Avenue and bought a cable so that I could view the clips on my computer. Gopros are ingenious miniature wide angle video cameras designed for people who want to film the world around them while they are on the move, on land, in the air or on and in water. I quickly discovered that… Read Complete Text
Our 100th night shoot was put back by a day because of rain. As it is close to the end of the season, I didn’t want to have to wait until September to bring up the century. I managed to assemble an ad hoc team for our visit to Palm Grove National Park. It was full moon. There was hardly any insect noise compared with the strong background chirping we heard 8 days ago in MacDonald National Park. We saw plenty of Giant Panda Snails and a couple of Pademelons, plus native cockroaches and various species of ant. The highlights were filming a semi-slug which may be the third species we have seen (confirmation awaits expert opinion in due course) and a Tawny Frogmouth sitting on a branch close to the path. I also filmed a leggy fly which did not look like a Crane Fly. The rain, which cut our walk short, relented just as we came upon the Frogmouth. We will keep the season going as long as there are creatures to film.
We are one short of 100 night shoots. Not surprisingly, I find that I am not shooting as much footage as I used to because fewer new subjects present themselves. A recent shoot did yield a beetle, Saw Fly larvae, a large black millipede, a Brown Lacewing eating a Crane Fly and a pair of mating Crane Flies. However the two most recent shoots each provided a unique gem. On 23 April I filmed a katydid eating a fungus perhaps 10 -12 cm high growing out of the rainforest floor.This evening, near the start of the circuit in MacDonald National Park I filmed a small snail. With a low battery in the camera and a fully charged battery left in the car, I was tempting fate to provide a highlight which I might not have been able to film. As luck would have it, we were on our way out of the park when we saw a cricket burrowing into the earth, something we had not seen before and I filmed it for several minutes until the battery ran out.
A stranger, who turned out to be a delightful man in his late eighties, phoned me today alerting me about Rose Robins attracted to a tree outside his bedroom window. Seeing as many as 4 or 5 at a time was new to him, since one usually sees a solitary bird. I timed my visit for late afternoon and was rewarded with a lone female who posed in full view instead of flitting about. Years ago I was taken by surprise by a Rose Robin at my favourite bird bath. It didn’t hang around long enough for me to get clear footage.
Our visit to Joalah National Park was the first night filming since November 27 last year. In the last week or so, after a dry Summer, the weather has become wetter, though nothing like the flooding rains of recent years. The night was perfect. The insects and frogs, enlivened by the recent rain, were in full voice. We saw plenty of Great Barred Frogs, many spiders, some snails, possums, a bedraggled butterfly, a lone male harvestman, but no Leaf-tailed Geckos or semi-slugs. What saved the night was filming two Swift Ghost Moths, an exquisite species I first filmed on February 21 last year. Somehow a third specimen materialised much higher up the path on our way back. The moth has no proboscis, therefore cannot feed and may only last a day.
Today, I collected my camera from the repairer, having dropped it off on 19 December last year, and filmed with it for the first time since 15 December. My subject was 2 Cyana meiricki moth larvae in their cages before the cocoon stage. The larvae make the cages out of their own long hairs. The cages were made within the last two days.
This evening we went to Joalah National Park for the first time this season. It was on the cool side after the first rain in weeks. There were plenty of native cockroaches, some millipedes, a female Harvestman, a dragonfly, spiders and a snail. We saw two eels in the pool below Curtis Falls, one moderately sized, the other small. None of which I filmed. The highlight was filming a large Carpet Python partly stretched out on and partly coiled around, a bit of tree some 60cm off the ground. I also filmed a butterfly resting on a leaf.
To make full sense of this post, you will need to read the previous post first. What a difference 2 days make. I recalled a daylight photo of a semi-slug my friend Louise Piper sent me which looked like Cucularion parkini. It was taken on her letterbox about 200 metres from one of the entrances to Palm Grove. I had lost the photo, so asked Louise to re-send it. Whereupon I emailed it to John. I got his reply this morning confirming it was none other than his 1998 discovery. Louise’s photo predates my first encounter by 18 months, so we now have a new second sighting of a mollusc still apparently confined to the mountain.
The latest email exchange with mollusc expert John Stanisic, who has identified the various snails I have filmed, concluded on a most interesting note this morning. I had sent him 3 nocturnal frames of Semi-slugs on September 27 to which I received a reply yesterday, confirming one identification and requesting further information on the other frames which he stated were both of the same species. I promptly replied, telling him that I had filmed the two in Palm Grove National Park, the first in November 2011, the second in March 2012. Whereat he quickly responded with the identification. He had momentarily forgotten that I only film on Tamborine Mountain. On googling the species, Cucularion parkini (Semi-slug 2 on page 2 of the Night Life album) I found out that it was discovered by John in The Knoll National Park on Tamborine Mountain and written up in 1998, the year I began my video biodiversity artwork. I then sent John a congratulatory email and asked if the mollusc had been found anywhere else since. Which brings us to this morning’s email in which John declared that our sightings were the only others recorded. A true, only on the mountain and nowhere… Read Complete Text