Thank you again to everyone who counted pollinators in the seventh National Wild Pollinator Count! We’ve reached more locations in Australia this count than before. It’s wonderful to see how many people love counting pollinators. We received many comments from people noting how much they enjoyed the opportunity to relax with nature and observe the little animals we share our environment with.

This count, we received 458 observations from 126 locations around Australia – our highest number yet.

Participants counted over 4800 insects. And European honey bees were not the most-counted flower visitor: flies (1256 total counts) won the numbers this time! The results highlight how many non-bee insects are visiting, and often pollinating, our favourite flowers.

A total of 155 different types of plants were observed across Australia in this count. Similar to previous counts, more of these were exotic plants (58%) than native species (42%). The most commonly-watched flowering plants included common introduced garden herbs, like dandelions, borage, coriander, parsley, lavender and salvia, as well as popular natives, like grevilleas, callistemon, Wahlenbergia (native bluebells) and dianella.

The weather was a little unpredictable in many parts of Australia and, after the warmer than average winter, this may have influenced what you saw in your backyard. You can find results from previous counts here.

Hope you can join in next time, for the autumn 2018 count from 8-15 April, to see how things compare!