The State Library’s IT whiz emailed Steve confirming pick up of most of the HD data files on which Steve has been working on and off since May.

The Atlas of Living Australia and I have been in contact since the end of 2010 to find avenues of mutual benefit which is easier said than done. Today I received an email from Program Manager Peter Docherty specifying ways in which I could be connecting with ALA. I am not in a position to follow up just yet because I need to deepen my connection with EOL. Once that is done, I can hopefully embark on a similar relationship with ALA.

I received an email from Vanessa with links to the community art residency she and Kat will be engaging in in Japan from 25 August to September 22. Vanessa is also exhibiting a sculpture at the Jing’an International Sculpture Biennial in Shanghai, which she will attend during her Japanese trip.

An email arrived from the Liaison Librarian: Art & Design at Middlesex University, the final home of my alma mater Hornsey Collge of Art. She confirmed her interest in receiving the copies of ‘Gravy’,the college magazine I edited from 1965 to 1967. They are still in the folder in which I kept them after publication.

I received an email from Dave Allan addressed to Steve confirming that he had loaded the test data files I had delivered and that there were no problems accessing them. I’m off overseas on June 9 and will be kept busy checking and possibly delivering the completed files after I get back in mid July.

I sent out another 16 emails to literary agents, mostly in London, but some in New York. Six of the initial batch (all from London) replied. I emailed 3 submissions and posted 2.

My son Simon and his fiancée, Nicole, were married on the 5th anniversary of their first date at a winery at the foot of the mountain, so I did not have far to travel. It was a perfect day, sunny, indeed hot for a while. Bride and groom were radiant, the venue’s lawns and the surrounding countryside were verdant, the food was plentiful and tasty and the mountain provided a spectacular back drop.The speeches were heartfelt,  informative and much enjoyed. It was refreshing for me to be socialising with so many young people.

Today I received an email from Nigel Fechner, a mycologist at the Queensland Herbarium in Brisbane. Based on my description in the email I sent him, the fungi I filmed  on 30 March (see Film Diary below) are Phallus multicolor a close relative of the Crinoline Stinkhorn, Phallus indusiatus. The skirt of P. multicolor is shorter than that of P. indusiatus and is less likely to fully develop and may even appear to be non-existent.

The larva (caterpillar) of the Cyana Meyricki moth builds a stunning cage-like cocoon, a tapered oval in plan, out of its setae or hairs, which are numerous and appropriately long. The larva suspends itself in the cage and emerges as a moth through a gap in the taper. We have seen plenty of cages in a variety of locations, including 11 on the door of the neighbouring garage to the one where I film my moths. I have also filmed a cage in the rainforest at night. A few months ago I was checking some footage of a Wood Duck nestling 10 ducklings when the next sequence grabbed my attention. It was of a caterpillar climbing the wall of the garage where I film my moths. It was covered in long dark hairs and, based on the abandoned exoskeleton of larva in the cage, it was about the right size. So I asked Steve to capture some frames and sent them to  Dr David Britton at the Australian Museum in Sydney who is an expert on the moth. Today I received an email from him agreeing that “it is highly likely that this is the larva of the… Read Complete Text

Today I emailed a dozen literary agents, 10 of them in London, one in Brisbane and one in Melbourne, asking if they would consider my book “One small place on earth…   Celebrating Biodiversity Where You Are”.