Densey Clyne

Densey Clyne (born Dorothy Denise Bell, 4 December 1922 – 20 May 2019) was an Australian naturalist, photographer, writer, and documentarian. She is especially well known for her studies of spiders and insects. Clyne worked as a researcher, writer, narrator, and/or adviser on a number of productions in partnership with cinematographer Jim Frazier.

Life Clyne was born in Risca, Wales, United Kingdom,

While working as a secretary in a solicitor's office, she met lawyer Peter Clyne and they married in 1950. At the time of her death, Clyne lived in Wauchope, New South Wales. She also had regular columns in Australian Wildlife Magazine, This Australia, The Australian Women's Weekly, Burke's Backyard Magazine, Gardens and Outdoor Living, Australian Geographic, The Sydney Morning Herald Clyne's scientific contributions included the first detailed description of the net-making behaviour and sperm induction of the spider Asianopis subrufa; the web structure of the spider Poecilopachys australasia; and a joint paper with David Rentz, CSIRO Insect Division, on Anthophiloptera dryas, a new orthopteran genus and species, studied and recorded over several years by Clyne in her Sydney garden.

Clyne wrote scripts for her own and other television documentaries on natural history, maintaining a partnership with filmmaker Jim Frazier. Together, they had a company called Mantis Wildlife Films, which was regarded as a world leader in miniature wildlife photography, which was highly specialised at the time. Clyne also acted as a consultant on local wildlife for Australian and overseas television film productions, She delivered talks and addresses on invertebrate behaviour, the pleasures of insect-watching, natural history writing and wildlife filming to schools, adult groups, and professional organisations. In 1995, she served as a juror at Japan's Environmental Film Festival.

Films For a 1971 feature The Australian Ark, Clyne was asked by producers Robert Raymond and Vincent Serventy to film her garden insects in macro as part of the Shell's Australia documentary series on Australia's natural heritage. Frazier, who was present at the meeting, offered to help; their first attempt at cinematography, based on her research into insect behaviour, was so successful that the team was commissioned to complete one entire programme for the series. This was the start of a 28-year filming partnership between Clyne and Frazier. Awards included the Australian Television Society's Golden Penguin.

In the mid-1970s, they produced four 20-minute educational documentary shorts: Come Into My Parlour Said the Spider... (1975), Now You See Me Now You Don't (1977), Blueprint for Survival (1977) and Every Care But No Responsibility (1977). This was followed by Butterfly Farming in Papua New Guinea in 1978, which was a 10-minute film made for the ABC's Weekend Magazine. The short was researched and scripted by Clyne. In 1979, Clyne and Frazier were chosen as one of ten teams to work on David Attenborough's documentary series Life on Earth. Clyne did the research and wrote the script for their segments. Notably, they were able to capture footage of a kowari giving birth, which had previously never been observed. The same year, they worked with producers Dione Gilmour and Peter Bale to film the BBC/ABC documentary Encounter Underground about bulldog ants. In 1980, they worked on Gippsland (ABC); on Lady of the Spiders (BBC/ABC) in 1981; and on Funnelweb (Forest Homes Films) in 1982.

Their partnership with Attenborough continued when they were commissioned by the BBC in 1983 as one of several filming teams to contribute to three BBC television series, The Living Planet, by Sir David Attenborough. They filmed sequences for these series in Borneo, Penang, West Sumatra and California, and were responsible for advising, researching and filming several Australian subjects, notably invertebrate animals. Kinchega National Park, another ABC production, followed. In 1984, a one-hour BBC documentary about moths, Desire of the Moth, In 1985, The Sands of Time, a piece on Frazier Island, was produced by Yowie Films, written by Clyne and filmed by Frazier.

In 1986, Clyne conceived, wrote, The film won a Golden Tripod Award. She took part in David Attenborough's The Trials of Life (1988-1989) Frazier and Clyne expanded upon their first documentary, Aliens Among Us, in their 1992 documentary Webs of Intrigue. a Panda at Wildscreen in the UK, and the Japan Wildlife Festival Grand Award in 1995. The Amazing World of Mini Beasts (1997) was another documentary conceived, researched, written and presented by Clyne, in association with Silvergrass Productions.

Honours and awards Densey Clyne was a Fellow of the Royal Entomological Society of London. For her contributions to arachnology, Clyne had two new species of spider named for her: Austrarchaea clyneae and Ozicrypta clyneae.

Year Award Awarding body For Ref 1976 Hasselblad Masters Award Hasselblad Stills photography 1977 Individual Achievement Award TV Society of Australia Best Documentary Director, Garden Jungle 1982 Wildlife in the Suburbs 1999 Photographer of the Year 2010 Whitley Award Royal Zoological Society of New South Wales Best Children's Series, All About Ants and Secret Life of Butterflies