My primary focus has always been on photographing Australia’s unique invertebrate wildlife, but there have been many occasions when, after sharing a photo for general interest or to get help with an identification, I have been asked, “Which plant did you find it on?”. More often than not I haven’t been able to come up with the answer because my knowledge of our native flora has been somewhat lacking and I shamefully admit I didn’t take a lot of notice of the plant during my pursuit of the insect. This prompted me to be more attentive to the insect host plants and over time I began to appreciate the flora in its own right, which has resulted in a growing collection of plant photos, mainly consisting of images of our stunning wildflowers.

I think the initial interest started with the Orchids because of their fabulous array of shapes, sizes and colours, but during my travels I have broadened that interest to include any and all wildflowers and I have learned to time my outings with certain species being in flower in certain locations at certain times of the year to maximise my chances of finding invertebrate wildlife. For example, the best time to find Jewel Beetles (Buprestidae) is in Spring and Summer and the best place to find them is on Leptospermum, Bursaria and Cassinia when they are in bloom. Gaining a greater understanding of the flora has given me a greater understanding of the fauna.

My travels throughout Victoria, New South Wales, Queensland, South Australia and Western Australia have yielded a few thousand wildflower photos and I feel it would be wrong if I didn’t share them with you all because they now form an integral part of my macro photography and besides, they are simply too beautiful to be kept out of sight in the cold, dark recesses of my computer.

Please follow the link below to dive into the new Wildflowers gallery and I hope you enjoy the stunning variety of flora this country has to offer.

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Click Here to see the Wilflower galleries

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