Today I went to the Queensland Museum in Brisbane to hand over my Image Library to Michelle Ryan. The support documents with species identification and locations were much appreciated. It is interesting to note how often I wrote ‘roadside’ as the location. A deed of gift will be prepared for me to fill in and sign which should prove straightforward. I await further instructions concerning data to be supplied by Steve. It is a relief that the library is in its new home.
This evening I completed writing up species identification and location on the 3,597 video frames and 434 photos which comprise my image library as a preliminary to handing it over to the Queensland Museum. I started the work around the beginning of the month and have been at it with hardly a break. It helped that there were as many as nine repeat illustrations of a number of subjects and fewer repeats of many more. The work has added great value to the images and revealed errors which have been corrected and omissions which have now enriched my website. A Deed of Gift has to be finalised. That won’t happen until after my return from Africa, whither I am bound in just under a fortnight.
Last Friday I ordered new tapes from the local supplier, only to be told that there were none in stock, but further enquiries would be made. Today I was told that Sony was no longer making the tapes. I phoned the people in Sydney from whom I bought my camera and was directed to FATS (Film and Tape Sales) in Chatswood. They had 30 in stock and I promptly ordered 10 for delivery on Friday. I am looking to buy a new camera at the end of the year and hope the tapes will tide me over. Steve had foretold the demise of the tapes some time ago.
With the latest 8 videos Steve and I have uploaded to the site, the total has just ticked over the 350 mark. At the time we received a grant in 2013 to create videos, there was a substantial backlog of SD and HD footage. We are now up to date with 3 videos pending and 4 time-coded DVDs awaiting collection from which new clips will be selected.
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