Binoculars in the Backcountry: Western Australia

We left South Africa for Western Australia (WA) as we continued to chase spring in the southern hemisphere. WA is well known as one of the world's best floral hotspots when the winter rains come. That doesn't always happen, and in fact had not been very good for several years. And to top it off for us, bookings and plans have to be made months in advance, long before there is any indication of what the flower displays will be. With a booked start date for our endemic birding tour in early October already set, we had over three weeks to wander around WA. Our ever resourceful chief planner (Susan) laid it out so that even if the flowers were poor we would have plenty of hiking and museum looking to keep us occupied.

Lady Luck smiled and the winter (per the opinion of locals) was the best in over 20 years. Yay for us! Finding flowers, and lots of them, was no problem. We were easily able to keep ourselves entertained with walks and beautiful hikes all around WA.

With pre-trip investigation, we knew that WA was a biological hot spot for many endemic plants, and especially terrestrial orchids. What we didn't know was that after we had seen a few orchids we would be hooked on these amazing flowers. Maybe "hooked" isn't a strong enough word - obsessed is probably better. Long hours were spent each evening researching the best orchid hunting spots along our route. And we did well - really well. There are over 400 species of orchid in WA, blooming throughout the year. All we had was a three week period to find as many as we could along the route we had pre-planned. When it was all done we found a total of 87 species, far exceeding even our wildest dreams.

Starting in Perth, our route went north and east into the wheat belt farming region. We would spend our time doing a big clockwise zigzag loop, from our northernmost point at Wubin, down to the southern coast, then around and up the west coast back to Perth.

Western Australia is huge, three times the size of Texas. The mediterranean climate of the southwest part of the state has the best biodiversity, so that's where we spent our time. Even though we only travelled a small corner of the state, we drove over 3000 miles (on the wrong side of the road!).

I will break this narrative up into several posts to keep it reasonable reading. With a birding tour coming at the end of trip, we didn't put a lot of effort into finding the endemic bird species during the first three weeks. But of course we didn't close our eyes to the birds, so many were seen. And while orchids became a priority, there were many other flowers to be seen and enjoyed. As usual I will show my favorite images, but there's lots more to be found for those wanting a deep dive into the sightings.

The total number of plants species identified was nearly 250. This iNaturalist link includes them all:

All observations

Our 87 species of orchids can be viewed with this link:

Orchid list

This eBird trip report is for the time preceding our endemic bird tour. I will spend more time writing about the endemic birds in a later post.

eBird Trip Report

Our route started in the Wheatbelt, the interior area east of Perth that produces the vast majority of farming products in the country. Wheat and canola (rapeseed) fields are abundant, and when you catch a canola field in full bloom it can be quite spectacular. We would never have guessed that a domestic crop would become such an important part of our travels.

Farming and the associated land clearing started in the late 1800's and continues to this day. It is estimated that only about 5% of the native habitat remains, and it is highly fragmented. It is the remnant habitat where the native flowers still exist, and thankfully there are a number of small national parks and preserves to protect what is left. Rocky outcrops, unsuitable for farming, were among the best areas for flowers. There were many of these, and we sought them out.

I understand that this post is quite focused on botany, and for those who prefer more scenic views and birds, I’ll be adding those in future posts. I hope you enjoy reading it.

Cowslip Orchid (Caladenia flava)

Leafy Sundew (Drosera stolonifera), one of the many carnivorous plants

Silky Blue Orchid (Cyanicula sericea)

Blood Spider Orchid (Caladenia filifera)

Twining Fringe-Lily (Thysanotus patersonii)

Cow Kicks (Stylidium schoenoides)

Common Donkey Orchid (Diuris corymbosa)

Drooping Spider Orchid (Caladenia radialis)

Ant Orchid (Caladenia roei)

Caladenia denticulata

Common Spider Orchid (Caladenia varians)

Yellow Granite Donkey Orchid (Diuris hazeliae)

Mia Moon Reserve

Lemon-scented Sun Orchid (Thelymitra antennifera)

Ant Orchid (Caladenia roei)

Buntine Nature Reserve

Stylidium confluens

Pink Everlasting (Schoenia cassiniana) blooms in profusion in places

Pink Everlasting (Schoenia cassiniana)

One of our big targets was Wreath Flower (Leschenaultia macrantha). There are lots of species in this genus, but this one was a must see and draws flower peepers from all over Australia and the world. In a normal year this species would be finished by the time we got there. But the late, wet winter and early spring kept them going strong for us. The "wreath" in the photo below is a single plant about 18 inches across.

Wreath Flower (Leschenaultia macrantha)

Rhodanthe chlorocephala ssp. splendida

Xantippe Nature Reserve

Pincushions (Borya sphaerocephala)

Sugar Orchid (Caladenia saccharata)

Fringed Mantis Orchid (Caladenia falcata)

Red-banded Greenhood (Pterostylis sanguinea)

White Spider Orchid (Caladenia longicauda)

Pincushion Coneflower (Isopogon dubius)

Blue Leschenaultia (Leschenaultia biloba), same genus as the wreath flower above

The small village of York. Get out of the car and set your watch back 75 years.

A herd of common donkey orchids

Broad-billed Duck Orchid (Caleana triens). Very rare. How cool of a name is that!?

Dryandra National Park is the largest remnant of native vegetation in the Western Wheatbelt. Our first visit there was in the first week of our flower driving tour (September 17) and the weather could have been better. Cold and rainy all morning, but we did get out for a few hours in the afternoon. Susan's most wanted marsupial, the insect eating Numbat can be seen in the wild here. Unfortunately as an insectivore, its prey isn't active until the ambient temperature is warm enough, about 62F. And it never got close to warm enough, so we didn't have any luck. There is good news, we would be back in a few weeks on our birding tour, so all hope is not lost. We did turn up a very cooperative Western Short-beaked Echidna, and that made our day.