After meagre spoils night filming in Joalah National Park, usually the most reliable source of subjects, Jaap and I agreed to resume filming in early October. Other than the ever-abundant birds, little is stirring among the Mountain’s fauna in late Autumn and Winter. Indeed our previous foray a fortnight ago in MacDonald National Park was unique in that for the first time in over 18 months I found nothing worth filming. However, I was still able to film a moth on the garage in Central Avenue today.

For over a year I had been after Lenore Thiele, a retired ecologist, to let me film her digging up a fungus, to reveal more about its constituent parts. Naturally she was reluctant to dig in the National Parks, but today she told me about a suitable specimen near her house. When I called round ready to film, she showed me some fungi in her garden and I told her that they would make good subjects, so she dug and I filmed. It was just as well that we took the opportunity, because the fungus she had in mind, a far bigger specimen, had been damaged and it was located under a hedge, which would have made filming far more difficult if not impossible.

A varied day which included a frustrating attempt to film a couple of Scaly Breasted Lorikeets near my home. Once common, these birds have become a rarity, usurped by the Rainbow Lorikeet. That night I filmed the release into the rainforest of a couple of Carpet Pythons which had been captured on Mountain properties.

An excellent day. In the morning I filmed Wollumbinia dorsii, a newly recognised species of fresh-water turtle, named by its discoverer after herpetologist Marcus Dorse of Tamborine Mountain, a friend of mine. The footage was shot in Marc’s garden and includes him holding the turtle. Later on, I filmed a Graceful Tree Frog on the library window in North Tamborine and a stunning insect on the adjoining Westpac Bank window.

The day got better, because that night in the Knoll National Park, I filmed a spectacular moth, a Giant Panda Snail – they are huge – and a Brushtail Possum. The possum was clinging to a tree, only a couple of metres above the ground and remained there for a long time looking at us looking at it.  I was able to get some good close-ups of its tail and its paws. Eventually it leaped to an adjacent tree and my view of it was partly obscured by vegetation. Fortunately I managed to zoom onto its pointed nose, at the end of which a large drip formed which duly succumbed to the effects of gravity. As we were nearing the exit, Jaap told us… Read Complete Text

Six days ago I paused on my morning walk to talk to some people I know who happened to be at their front gate, which is set back from the road, when my gaze was directed to the presence of several moths clustered around a pair of lamps on either side of the double garage door. The lamps remain on all night. I was gob-smacked. I had passed this garage most mornings for years on end and hadn’t noticed a single moth until that morning’s chance conversation. Many of the moths were tiny and could not be noticed from the street, but some were large enough to be clearly seen. For several days since, I have filmed an assortment of beautiful moths in greater numbers than at the shopping centre in North Tamborine, my erstwhile stamping ground for gathering moths. A couple of days ago I even filmed a fair sized Titan Stick Insect. It doesn’t bear thinking about the moths I have missed over the years at this location.

When I started night filming I may have shot five minutes or less of footage during a two hour walk. Now, the amount of footage has doubled. Tonight in the Knoll National Park, I was able to film a couple of Brushtail Possums. Our previous encounters with possums in the rainforest had been too brief for filming. The second possum was particularly endearing as it waited in a branch high overhead until I had finished filming two spiders on the tree’s trunk.

Another night filming session in Joalah, which yielded plenty of delights, not least because we had the alert presence of a young woman, who spotted a number of good subjects, the most unexpected of which was a Titan Stick Insect. It was a medium-sized specimen. The insects can grow to a length of 250mm. However, the truly exceptional sight was a roosting Azure Kingfisher on a branch above the self-same pool where I filmed the eel. The bird was a new species for the archive.

There was a time, lasting many years, when, much to my disappointment, I failed to see any pademelons – a small marsupial related to the wallaby – on my visits to Palm Grove National Park, where they had been common. However, for the past few years they have been present in numbers, not only near the entrance, but deep within the park. They are skittish creatures. If you don’t manage to see them you can hear them pounding the ground as they bound out of danger. Today, I managed to film a pademelon who had not retreated out of sight, but had paused to watch me from a safe distance. I was able to set up my camera to give me a clear view. After several minutes of the pademelon looking at me filming, it was gone. Filming it was a pure bonus as I was in the park to add to my footage of tangled and knotted vines.

Night filming in Joalah National Park with Jaap once again showing the way. The highlight was filming a Long-Finned Eel in the pool below a cascading Curtis Falls, following good seasonal rain. The pool was tranquil and the eel meandered in the water in good view. I had seen a couple of eels in this pool and further down stream and tried to film them in daylight without success.  It beats me how eels manage to ascend from the ocean to 500 metres above sea level.

Night filming in MacDonald National Park with a Dutch friend, Jaap, who has a good spotlight and knows where to find fauna. Have not viewed the footage. Filmed a garden orb spider in her web, plus several spiders at the entrance to their burrows. Not sure which species – wolf spider, mouse spider, northern funnel web (just as deadly as the Sydney species)? Filmed one of several great barred frogs we saw in the park. One portion of fallen tree trunk next to the path contained two large millipedes, a slug/snail, a leaf-tailed gecko and a rare black-soled frog. Also filmed a glow-worm and its curtain of sticky strands for trapping prey.