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.

Categories
bees flowers Western Australia wildlife

The Wreath Flowers of Wongoondy

18 September. We get a reliable tip off that the amazing ref flowers are nearby. We pick up camp and hit the road, until we see the old wind turbine of an abandoned water pump. On the side of the road, we spot the strange and beautiful wreath flowers (Lechenaultia macrantha). This unusual plant forma a low mat that produces a ring of flowers at its edge. But the botanical highlight is hidden in plain sight just besides the reeflowers. A small bush ripe with hundreds of purple flower buds lines the edge of the road a few meters from where we are. this interesting plant slowly opens its buds as the morning warms up and reveals another buzz pollinated wonder! the flowers of Seringia (Malvaceae), mimic Solanum flowers with its bright yellow stamen cone at the centre (more on the amazing morphology of Seringia later). The resemblance seems to work well, and we soon find plenty of bees visiting this plant.

Nearby, a pink Maleleuca is a magnet of small and large bees, and here we find an astounding Australian bee. The full ID will need to wait for the experts, but it appears that we have found Ctenocolletes aff. rufescens in the unusual family Stenotritidae. If confirmed, this is one of the most exciting findings of the trip so far. The family Stenotitridae is the smallest of all bee families, with about 21 species restricted to Australia, mostly in the west (Danforth et al. 2019. The Solitary Bees). A mysterious bee group sister to the most abundant bee family in Australia (Colletidae). I cannot wait to see the evaluation of the taxonomic experts, and start analysing the buzzes of this fantastic bee group!

Superficially similar to my favourite Australian bee, the blue banded bee, this gorgeous Ctenocolletes rufescens cannot restist the nectar and pollen of the Maleleuca brush flower. We manage to collect an measure this and other bees of all different kinds and sizes. Today has also been an excllent day for data colection. we spend the day here and later begin travelling north to our next destination.

A gorgeous bee, perhaps Ctenocolletes rufescens (Stenotritidae).

As we approach some low hills, David spots on the road a Western blue-tongue lizard. We stop to take a photo, and the monster warns us off from getting close by rapidly sticking out its blue tongue. we leave it looking grumpy on the side of the road.

As the day wears off, we decide to call in Geralton for the evening. After a few days on the road it will be nice to have hot shower and resupply on water and food.

Categories
bees flowers Western Australia

Coalseam and the bronze bee

17 September. Last night we arrived late to the Coalseam campground and as we set up for the night, a pair of reddish eyes looked back from the bush. A small kangaroo laid still in the branches just off the path. The night sky cleared out and treated us to some stunning views of the milky way.

Today we wake up to a cool but sunny morning. We are on the bowl of a small valley of Australian bush surrounded by agricultural fields that hide beyond the edge of the valley. A thing line of coal cuts through the river bed at the bottom of the valley. Too thin to be commercially viable, a small pile of mine tailings and a closed down shaft is all that remains of the old mine. Before we start our drive, we decide to explore the trail up the valley rim, almost just for fun. and then, just across the river we strike gold.

Scattered not far from the trail’s edge, bushes full of golden flowers hold a surprise for us. The buzz-pollinated flowers of Senna artemisioides, in the pea plant Fabaceae, are at their peak. This is an amazing flower that has the typical poricidal anthers, the tube-like anthers that closely guard pollen grains. But within each flower there are two types of anthers in this species, a short set that attracts and feeds pollinators, and a second set of longer anthers that sneak underneath or besides the pollinator and showers them with pollen to fertilise flowers. These so called heterantherous flowers, have evolved many times in disparate groups.

The flowers of S. artemisioides (silver Senna) are thus buzz pollinated and heterantherous, and we soon start hearing the high-pitched sounds of buzz pollinating bees. We set in catching bees to measure in the Buzz Bus, and soon David and I have collected enough to keep us busy for a few hours. We do a couple more trips of collecting and measuring bees. there are many beautiful black bees with blue abdomens and they obligue and give away their defense buzzes. The data flows in through the accelerometer, and we get many minutes of bee buzzes for our library. As we continue exploring and measuring, we notice that there are at least three species or subspecies of Senna that differ in flower size, level of heteranthery and leaf size and shape. The bee highlight, though, is a large and beautiful bee wish a bronze thorax and black abdomen. Measuring this one requires extra care and wearing some cow hide gloves to avoid its sharp stinger. a true buzz pollinating champion.

After the best day so far for data collection, we round it up with views of the coalseam river, a small flock of green budgies, galahs, and a very large black cockatoo. We run into some friends of David, and we tell them about the Buzz project, eat together and sit around the fire eating marshmallows that they kindly share with us. We stayed in the communal fire for a while, watching the southern cross in the sky, Alfa Centauri, Jupiter, Scorpion, and hearing stories from the old timers that relish telling about naive explorers that have found that travelling in the Australian outback is more challenging than expected.

— They didn’t think their truck will get stuck in the sand— says Tony, as he recalls when they had to bail a pair of city dwellers in a two-wheel drive from an off road track—well, you are stuck now!

We decide to stay another night in this lucky place.

Categories
Uncategorized

Wild bees!

16 September. We spent the night in Green Head, and this morning we explored the hens growing along the coastal walk. Rocky headlands that break into transparent waters with barely any waves. An osprey guards the shoreline, and then heads inland to collect branches for its massive nest on top of a manmade pole. No bees but honeybees this morning either. We have a nice chat with a cafe owner that invites us back to talk about bees to their local community. We exchange contact details to arrange a virtual talk once I’m back in Sweden.

Today we are heading inland to try to find wild bees along the area of Lake Indoon, where we see old eucalyptus trees that serve as home to birds and as food to parrots that tear down flowers after squeezing out the nectar and thousands of honeybees. The hum of the honeybees above our heads is impressive (later that night I dream of honeybees and beekeepers). No wild bees.

We push onward to the road near Lake Louge, and David suggests stopping on the roadside to check an area that has recently burn down and where wildflowers are making a beautiful display of oranges, reds and yellow. We pull over. On the margin of the road there is an old skeleton of a kangaroo, the vertebrae lined up and the skull laying in the gravel. As we walk away from the road we come to an incredible display of cat’s paws that extend as far as you can see, the short, yellow and red inflorescences of this bird pollinated plant poke their heads above the white sand. Among them there are carnivorous plants that place their traps above the ground in a vertical, miniature branch about 20 cm tall. The land is covered by Bchrred skeletons of Banksia that went up in flames when the land burnt but that have resprouted with a vengeance. There are few flowers, but in one of them we see some activity. They are wild Australian bees!

We finally have managed to find the elusive pollinators as the day warms up. We sample some miniature bees that congregate in dozens in the pink inflorescences of the Banksia. We also find a few large bees with black thoraxes and blue tinged abdomens (Colletidae?), and excited for the new discoveries we set up the mobile lab in the Buzz Bus. David takes the lead on the data acquisition controls in the computer, and I lasso the first bee and press it against the miniature accelerometer that will record its buzzes. A high pitch symphony of annoyed buzzes is swiftly recorded and we have our first data point!

We spend a couple of hours here seeking out bees, recording buzzes, and photographing their flower food. As the afternoon approaches, we pick up the mobile lab and start driving inland towards our next destination. We are headed to Coalseam to search for more bees and flowers. As the sun sets, the clouds begin to thin out, and we hope that the overcast cool days of the last week will finally yield to the sunny, warm skies that will get bees out of their sheltering hideouts.

Categories
flowers Western Australia

The incredible plant diversity of Leuseur Plateau

15 September. Today ahs been one of the most amazing botanical days in my life! After leaving Karda campground, we head directly to Leuseur National Park. Arriving here, I quickly realise why David has been so insistent in including this place in the itinerary. This is a true heaven of botanical diversity. A series of flat-topped hills in a valley formed by hardened rock and filled with the sand of ancient shorelines, this relatively small place holds meter-by-meter more plant diversity than a tropical rainforest! The diversity of plants is such that 60% of the plant species found in Mount Leusueur (named by French explorers that noticed its flat top while sailing the nearby ocean) are not seen in Mount Michelle, a mere 1.5km away. What should be a couple hours of exploration, turns into a full day affair, as we cannot walk more than a few steps before discovering another bunch of amazing flowers that blows away even seasoned, local botanists. Among the many incredible species we find a few buzz-pollinated taxa. This is so exciting! Monocots and dicots y diverse plant families converge here in the typical Solanum buzz-pollinated morphology. I am certain that soon we will be finding a trove of buzz-pollinating bees. But the cool, windy weather has other plans for us. We search everywhere but, although we find hundred of honey bees feeding on the flowers of Eucalyptus and Banksia, we see not a single wild bee. We continue looking until the sun is about to set, and yet no wild bees at all.

–Do you have a plan B?, asks David.

I do not. I still have hope that when the weather turns (we have had a string of cool, overcast, or rainy days in what is supposed to be one of the sunniest places in the world, we should be able to find bees. Let’s see what tomorrow holds for the Buzz Bus.

Categories
Western Australia wildlife

Buzz Bus Departure

14 September. Departure day! Today we leave Perth after a slow start with a stop at the supermarket to stock on food for the next days. David and I leave on a sunny morning headed north. We leave the city and soon hit the first Eucalyptus forests. Driving along Indian Ocean Drive, we pass Yanchep and later in the afternoon reach the beautiful Nilgen Natural Reserve, where we stop to look for bees. Although we only find honeybees, we had a first chance to see many cool plants in the wild, including spar orchids, Banksia, and Hakea, and many more!

The day is going by fast, and the next decision is whether to stop at the Pinnacles Desert. Although likelihood of finding native bees here is low, we agree that this is a stop worth taking and decide to do a whistle tour of this incredible place. We are not disappointed and soon become enchanted by this alien and magic landscape. Against a backdrop of yellow sand, thousands of stone pillars stand up in the long shadows of the late afternoon. The stone columns can vary in height from a few tens of centimeters to more than two meters. Their origin of these structures remains a mystery and hypotheses range from precipitation in subterranean rivers to the trunks of ancient trees buried in sand. Regardless of how they are born, David and I spend some time among their bizarre forms and search for shapes among the stones. Some remind us of wizards, skulls, animals and many more! In the sand, we come across the tracks of a kangaroo, and follow them for a while, tracing the, sometimes enormous jumps of what we assume was a large kangaroo. In the outskirts of the park, we briefly see an emu, rivalling in size and African ostrich.

It is getting late, and we push towards our first campsite at camp Karda. The night is starting to set but as we pull in the dirt road, I see my first live wild kangaroo. Soon we realise that many more are coming out as the sun sets, and see a mom and jockey that graze the vegetation not far from where we set camp. After a dinner in the cool and rainy night, the sky opens and we are treated to an amazing display of the milkyway high in the sky. We take some night photos of stars and planets and go to bed, exhausted but excited. Sadly no bees today, but maybe tomorrow we find them.

Categories
Uncategorized

King’s Park

Today (13 September), we picked up the Buzz Bus! The campervan that will be our home for the next three weeks is very nice and with space to set up the lab to measure bees. After collecting the Buzz Bus, we drove to King’s Park in Perth where David and I met Ziggy, a researcher working at the Park studying the reproduction and population genetics of Australian plants. He had some great tips about plant watching and we had a ncie chat about the use of technology for studying pollinators. David and he work together in a cool project on a group of plants called Kangaroo Paws, and I learned that the Australian flora is particularly rich in bird-pollinated plants. Hopefully this doesn’t mean that bee pollinators will be hard to find! We spend the night in Perth, to prepare for the departure north the following day.

King’s Park is an amazing botanical garden. We spend way longer here than originally planned, but is impossible not to stop and admire the incredible collection of plants held here. Common and rare, small and enormous, the botanical garden has it all. My favourites include the baobab trees, the walking palms (Pandanus), and of course the beautiful views of Perth’s waterfront.

Categories
Western Australia wildlife

Arrival to Perth

After a close call with the connection in London, and a 16 hour flight crossing Europe, the middle east, and (10 hours!) over the Indian Ocean I landed at Perth International airport. We were swiftly unpacked from the Spirit of Australia Boeing 787 Dreamliner. By some small miracle all my bags made it, and soon after I was on the cab of a taxi with a slightly confused driver that never ceased to be amazed how much the city had changed in the last five years, an explanation that he provided freely every time we took the wrong turn. I am staying in Joondalup, a satellite city to Perth, that reminds me of a small American city, but pedestrian friendly. But the wide streets, large shopping mall, and light traffic serve as a backdrop to my first encounter with Australian floral and fauna. David Field has kindly met me at my hotel for a little wonder in town, and after some Thai at the food court, we head to the Lagoon of Joondalup via Yellagoonga Regional park down the road from my hotel. As we walk, noisy lorikeets fly above us, and a large cockatoo stops by to take a rest in a large Eucalyptus in the street. As we walk by, a laughing kokaburra (Dacelo novaeguineae), an enormous kingfisher-like bird that when in groups call with crazy laughter like sounds, inspects us from the balcony of a house before flying off to rest in the aerial of somebody’s home. The pace is slow as we stop to see Banksias growing besides the sidewalk, kangaroo paws that are pollinated by nectar-thirsty birds, and many other plants, almost all which I have never seen or heard of before.

In the Yellagoonga park, and after narrowly avoiding a speed-demon cyclist, we make our way though the warnning signs for posionous snakes and begin a short exploration of the wildlife wonders that even a city park in Australia holds for the first-time visitor. David is an excellent guide and introduces me to lots of cool animals an plants. From the common Red Wattlebird (Anthochaera carunculata) that feeds on the red inflorescences of the toilet-brush tree, and defends its territory from inquisitive crows, to the most amazing and colourful Rainbow Lorikeet (Trichoglossus moluccanus), whic quickly becomes my favourite bird. We also see a few Galah (Eolophus roseicapilla), a parrot with pink chest and a cheeky disposition, quite a few Little Corellas (Cacatua sanguinea) a white cockatoo with a feathery tuft that is raised inquisitively, and on the ground an Australasian Swamphen (Porphyrio melanotus), and a handsome Australian Wood Duck (Chenonetta jubata) that forage in pairs on the grassy flats.

The plant life is of course amazing. We are guarded by large grass-like Balga trees, Xanthorrhoea preisii that very much remind me the elephant-foot trees of the Tehuacan valley in Mexico. The beautiful and curious Banksia abound, some small herbs with their yellow inflorescences close to the ground, others trees like the Parrot Bush (Banksia sessilis) and Candlestick Banksia (Banksia attenuata), with its persistent inflorescences that when mature release their seeds through small, mouth-like openings, that appear to speak to the passerby. We also see Pelargonium, Golden Wreath Wattle Acacia saligna), and the wonderful cycads in the genus Macrozamia, a palm-like conifer with its male and female cones kept close to the ground.

…To be continued.