Little Desert National Park VIC Bush Blitz | Oct 2018

Today I was heading out into the field with two experienced entomologists from Museums Victoria, Dr. Richard Marchant and Dr. Ken Walker. Richard is an expert on caddisflies, dragonflies and damselflies while Ken is an expert on Australian bees.

Second last day in the field and the weather was expected to be nice and warm. So our hopes were high that we would be successful in finding some new or interesting species of dragonflies and bees.

Our first point of call was Broughton’s Waterhole. We did not spend too much time here as there was not enough water to encourage the dragonflies and there were very few plants flowering to attract any bees.

On the way out from the waterhole we stopped to try our luck with some flowering eucalypts. Ken got out his extended sweep net and enthusiastically went about catching a number of tiny native bees.

Next was lunch and then off to the Wimmera River at the far eastern limit of the national park. There was enough water to encourage the dragonflies but they proved very difficult to catch. Luckily we had Ben, a photographer from Museums Victoria, with us and he was able to capture some great shots that enabled us to identify a few species. Ken also managed to catch quite a few native bees on nearby vegetation.

Today was a long hot day, but once again it was very rewarding. It was great to spend time with two very knowledgeable and entertaining scientists. I look forward to tomorrow, our last day.