A Big Country! Part 3

Wildflowers around Quilpie.We found the best wildflowers on the road from Quilpie south to Thargomindah. (I should mention here that this was the roughest road we drove on. It was unsealed for 40+Kms and was very cut-up by deep wheel tracks during the last period of wet weather. I'm glad it had dried out or we would never have made it in our ordinary 2 wheel drive car!) We were told in other places that we were a little early and that the best flowering would be in a week or so. However, we were delighted in what we did see.The land looked very dry and rocky in most places. However, this bare soil supported an amazing amount and variety of flowers. We saw 3 stands of bees along the side of the road so there must have been enough nectar for the bee-keepers to decide to put the bees in the area. I am not a botanist and have no idea of the names of the plants and flowers that I photographed. I just enjoyed the colors and variety. Of course, if anyone knows names I would be delighted to have you tell me. The first photos show first a view of the plant then a close-up of the flowers.The next flower did not have a large plant but was just growing by itself on a bit of dry looking ground.We drove on and stopped a little further down the road where the land was a bit lower and the grass and plants covered the ground.This time I did not photograph more of the flowers as I was distracted by birds! There was a whole flock of little Zebra Finches in the bushes! I have only seen one Zebra Finch flying free in the bush before and I think it was an escapee from a cage. It was really great to see all these birds free in the bush where they are meant to be. This was definitely the high-light of the day for me!