On my walk this morning I was startled by a crashing sound. Looking around I just caught sight of a kookaburra smashing into a hedge, emerging with a small, dark snake, wriggling in its beak. The bird flew onto a tree branch a short distance away, where I was able to observe it for several minutes. The snake tried to wrap itself around the bird’s head while held in the vice-like grip of the very large beak which is a distinguishing feature of the species. I eventually saw that the victim was a juvenile green tree snake. Adults can grow to a length of two metres. The bird suddenly flew to the ground in the garden next door, the better to overpower the snake by bashing it on the hard surface of the car port.

As I set out on my morning walk, a fallen bunya pine cone stood out on the grass of the park opposite my unit. Just an hour before, for the first time in months, the grass had been cut. Otherwise the cone, large as it is, would not have been as visible. I have never known a cone to fall in December. Usually on the mountain, they fall in the second half of January and in February. A group of bunya pines graces the side of the road further along my route. Two of the trees grow on each side of a drive at whose entrance the property owner was adjusting a shade cloth. I told her about the cone in the park and she showed me three which she had found this morning. A very fierce wind blew all yesterday, which may have dislodged the cones. There are several other bunya pine trees in the park, yet I only saw the one cone. Because we are enduring a severe drought, all the vegetation is stressed. The trees are shedding leaves as never before and I suspect that is why the bunya pines have shed cones early in December…. Read Complete Text

This morning I posted a USB with the latest 23 species videos and a corrected version of ‘The Rainforest at Night’, part 1, to the NFSA. The NFSA has the vast majority of my 568 videos on Vimeo, which are accessed on this site. Because I have been busy with my book, I haven’t filmed much since February, so it will take  a while for me to build up footage for further videos.

Jeff Wray emailed me confirming the safe arrival of the USBs  with the latest batch of 125 species videos for the NFSA, bringing the total in their collection to 511 videos.

Today, I sent Jeff Wray – senior curatorial officer, film, at the National Film & Sound Archive in Canberra – 3 USBs by registered post, filled with my third selection of HD species videos. It is two years since the previous offering.  The latest batch contains 125 videos to add to the NFSA’s  collection of my footage, which includes all 123 SD species videos. I need to send corrected footage of Supplement 4 of the Archive and the remaining 23 HD species videos on file, once Jeff returns the USBs.

Today, I completed the settings on the latest videos Steve and I have put together, bringing the total to 550, a figure we reached 9 ½ months after posting the 500th. The 550th. video is of lichens on the trunk of a palm tree emitting light in an ultra violet beam. The tree had fallen across a rainforest path. I have shot-selected another 7 videos without reaching the end of the latest footage.

There was a good attendance at the Progress Association’s monthly afternoon event at the Zamia Theatre for a double bill of my presentation of night footage and a video and talk by a local wildlife carer who looks after distressed bats. I began with a general introduction about my project and night filming and introduced 10 of the 14 videos. The audience was particularly responsive during the showing of a video of the world’s most deadly spider, the northern tree funnel web. The presentation was enthusiastically received and plenty of questions were asked, which was most pleasing. The carer had brought some young bats to exhibit. We felt that they seemed to respond to the sound of water in one of my videos. The bats I had filmed on the mountain are regarded as vulnerable, although they may camp in their thousands. Apart from twice drying up, I greatly enjoyed the occasion.