Day: September 22, 2022

Categories
flowers Western Australia

Floral Riches of Western Australia

21 September. Last night we stayed in a caravan park in Greenhough. The friendly staff treated us to a story of walking the Way of Santiago, a trail that extends 700km in a journey to Santiago de Compostela, Spain. The rusty showers and swallows nesting in the entrance to the laundry room adds character to a place that seems to exist in the strange dimension of roadsides. Unsurprisingly, we chat about David Lynch over breakfast.

In the morning, we continue driving south,  and we start the day with procession of 1960’s race cars that pass us in the opposite direction. We try to stop more rarely, but patches of Solanum distract us. We reach then Badgingarra National Park and quickly becomes the highlight of the day. A lunch break under a willow look-alike tree that is more closely related to guavas and Eucalyptus (Myrtaceae) than to willows (Salicaceae). Then a quick walk (no wild bees in sight), and the flower fest continues. Too numerous to name them now, we continue recording and photographing flowers. David spots a striking buzz-pollinated flower in the family Malvaceae (think hibiscus, mallow flowers but then transform them into some sort of tomato flower mimic). We photograph it and continue talking about follow up projects.

Late that evening we reach Perth and pack and clean the Buzz Bus. David and I say good bye after I drop him off at his family home. It has been a fantastic trip and we make plans for the analysis and write up of the data we are collecting. It has been great to have David’s expertise and knowledge of the flora of Western Australia and I have learned lots from him over the last eight days on the road.

Tonight I will stay in a hotel near the airport. Tomorrow I fly to Brisbane to meet Daniel Montesinos and start the second leg of the expedition.

Categories
flowers Western Australia

Wrapping up the West

20 September. Today we start driving South. First, we use ghe morning to return to Kalberri and visit the canyon again. The sky is bright blue, is less windy and the temperature around 20C, so we are hopefull to find bees. Along the walk we spot a small flowered Solanum, again with purple flowers. The combination of purple to lilac corollas and bright yellow anther cones seems to be widespread across buzz pollinated taxa here with the exceptions of all species in the families Fabacaeae and The Dilleniaceae (Hibbertia) that we have seen so far. we come to the rim of the canyon and its candy-coloured red and white banded sedimentary rocks.

Later we continue the drive back and spot many amzing plnts long the rod, including second Solanum with the same colour pattern.

We are targeting large patches of buzz pollinated bushes. The bees seem to be absent again today. A couple of honeybees visit them disinterestedly, gathering pollen in silence. these flowers offer no nectar, and it appears that a buzzing bee should be able to buzz large amounts of pollen from them. Yet honeybees, for reasons that remain unclear, are unable to buzz for pollen. The mute bees fly around looking for pollen grains. Why don’t they buzz? And where are all the native bees?

The frustration of driving hundreds of kilometres without being able to catch ny buzz pollinating bees is offset by the botanical treasure we see at every stop. Rare and fantastic flowers pop out from seemingly everywhere and every stop on the side of the road means finding 10-15 obviously new species for us. Banksias, Hakeas, Eucalyptus, Seringias, Cat’s paws, Kangaroo paws, daisies of all shapes, pea-flowered Fabaceae, yellow wattles…. the list goes on and on. Is this the most botanically diverse road trip in the World? How can all these species coexist in this mosaic of soil types? Floral displays carpet the vegetation and extend as far as you can see, with only agricultural fields bringing them to an end. We are in an amazing place at an amazing time of the year where plants of all kinds are pouring all their resources into producing millions of flowers. Bees and birds should be all over these plants, yet they re turning hard to spot. Is there a puzzle to solve with these missing pollinators or are we just unlucky?

The dearth of bees and the contrasting diversity of floral resources gives David and I plenty of material to speculate and develop projects and ideas. We might be leaving Western Australia with fewer bees than we anticipated, but we have ideas and inspiration to fuel us for a while. I have the feeling that I will be back in Western Australia sometime soon to study some of this buzz pollination systems.

Categories
back story

Buzz Bus promotion

A few months back we designed a logo for the expedition and printed some stickers, pin badges, and T-shirts for the team and to give away for promotion. The logo was made by the talented Debbie Mazels and depicts a blue banded Amegilla bee, on a buzz-pollinated flower of Halgania (Boraginaceae).

Unfortunately, the T-shirts are still stuck in storage in Scotland due to unexpected moving delays to Sweden. But Gillian has managed to rescue one, and has become the sole owner of an immediately rare piece of memorabilia!

Categories
Western Australia

Kalbarri

19 September. This morning we have breakfast at the Dome, in Geraldton, and the coffee and cake taste delicious. Then is back on the road. We are headed to Kalbarri National Park, looking for more bees and buzz pollinated flowers. We pass the sleepy town of Northampton, and enter the vast expanse of Kalbarri. The straight road cuts through some beautiful areas if wild bush, and the floral wonders continue appearing right and left. The morning is stormy and very windy, and there are no bees flying about. Even the pesky flies, that bane that is not mentioned to tourists but is well known to locals, are unable to take off on the windy conditions and leave us alone for a while.

On the road, an unlucky emu, a large flightless bird almost as big as an ostrich, crosses in front of a caravan coming on the opposite direction and sadly doesn’t make it. We stop but there is nothing to do with the poor animal. we note the mileage and will report it at the rangers station at the entrance of the park. the drive has taken a few hours, and the stops to check for bees means that we arrive at the park gates late in the afternoon. David and I decide to go for a short walk to the Sky Walk and Z bend.

The Sky Walk is a metallic structure that hangs high above the gorge that cuts deep into the meandering Murchison river valley. We enjoy beautiful views of the river and valley below, and we look for rock wallabies and red kangaroos, but without luck. we then drive to the Z bend and take a walk on the moist environment that exists among the cracks and crevices of the red rock as we descend towards the river. a few honeybees buzz around, but no native bees. Rain and sun mix as we walk down to reach the Murchison river among spectacular views of the red rock walls. Tortuous Eucalyptus sprung from crevices and thick, fat trunks at their base store resources that allow them to resprout and regenerate after fire. The path is relatively quiet and we are the last hikers to leave the Z bend walk in the dying afternoon. The right angles path that the river follows here is caused by deep cracks on the mother rock that have been carved for ages. When we walk up we see the fossil tracks of eurypterids, sea scorpions that hunted the waters and begun taking their first steps on dry land 400 million years ago, and find a very interesting species of heterantherous and enantiostylous Senna that appears common at the top of the valley. But no bees or rock wallabies here either.

We leave the park and go to Kalbarri town where we stay at the Caravan Park and eat fish tacos.

This night we stay up until late processing bee samples collected in the previous days. We photograph each specimen for later measurements and identification. The flash of the camera inside the caravan past midnight must be strange for other campers. We have found some amazing bees and the macro photos barely do justice to these beautiful buzzing bees. Tomorrow we will continue exploring the Kalbarri bush, hoping to find more bees.