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.
The 3 latest videos appearing on the site today, bring the total to over 250. I have done the shot-selection for another 30 which Steve and I will be working our way through.
For the first time since 29 July, due to my overseas trip and a combination of personal arrangements affecting Steve and me, we were only able to manage a working session this evening. We captured 90 frames, all but a few from the two most recent HD tapes, bringing the record up to date, except that I am well advanced on the next tape. We also put together 5 new videos.
Nearly two years after I handed over the grant-funded data files of my unedited footage to the State Library, and nine months since I at last received the Deed of Gift duly signed by a library official, I today delivered the data files and DVDs of HD tapes 67-80 funded by me. This means that the library now has the complete footage. I put down my reduced yearly output to a combination of creating 111 species videos, website travails, time away from home on trips and the fact that I was without my camera for 3 months last Summer.
Worked with Steve on new tapes and he confirmed that he had sent the final data file to Showrunner Productions in Perth, following succesive email requests to use my footage for their ’72 Dangerous Animals Australia’ series to be shown by the ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation). Showrunner requested my ‘Giant Centipede’, ‘Paralysis Tick’, ‘Stephen’s Banded Snake’ and ‘Grey-headed Flying Foxes’ vimeo footage.
Peter Hendry sent me an email on June 28 with the first Pancam ID, a small moth from a photo I sent him. Having emailed Chris Burwell with ID requests for a Pancam photo and 2 video frames on the 25th, I phoned him today regarding identification for a species video of an Earwig I filmed two years ago and he gave me information about the subjects in my email. I thought one subject was a Shield Bug and one a kind of Lady Beetle. The Shield Bug turned out to be a Soapberry Bug and the Lady Beetle an unidentified Shield Bug nymph.
This evening Steve downloaded the first video clips and photos from the Panasonic to his hard drive. We added photos and selected video frames for capture to Stills 18. I then deleted everything from the card and am awaiting a DVD from Steve with all the material from the download.