You could spend plenty of time travelling through Hattah, Murray-Sunset or Wyperfeld and probably never know one of the Mallee's smallest birds was hiding away in the spinifex.
The Mallee Emu-wren is tiny, secretive and weighs only around 4 to 7 grams, but a fair bit of effort is now going into making sure it continues to have a future in our part of the country.
And that effort now includes some pretty impressive technology.
Parks Victoria and the Department of Energy, Environment and Climate Action are using high-resolution 3D aerial imagery to search for patches of dense spinifex that could provide suitable habitat for the endangered little bird.
The work is currently focusing on the Annuello Flora and Fauna Reserve, north-west of Ouyen.
Looking for the right patch of spinifex
The Mallee Emu-wren spends much of its life tucked away low in thick Triodia spinifex, where it finds shelter and protection.
That makes finding suitable habitat pretty important.
Instead of trying to search huge areas of remote Mallee country on foot, researchers can now use aerial images to get a much better idea of where the biggest and thickest spinifex patches are.
Those areas can then be checked more closely on the ground.
There have been anecdotal reports of Mallee Emu-wrens around Annuello in the past, although Parks Victoria says they haven't been formally recorded there for decades.
That makes the current search a pretty interesting one.
If birds are found, it would be an important discovery.
But even if they aren't, finding suitable habitat could still make the area useful down the track as a possible site for future releases.
Still hanging on around our part of the Mallee
Small populations of Mallee Emu-wrens are still known to survive in Hattah-Kulkyne, Murray-Sunset and Wyperfeld national parks.
Their biggest problem is that they aren't strong flyers and don't cope particularly well when their habitat becomes broken up.
A large bushfire can wipe out huge areas of spinifex in one hit, and it can take years before that country becomes suitable habitat again.
For a bird that tends to stay close to the ground and doesn't travel large distances, moving from one patch of suitable country to another isn't always easy.
Hattah birds helping rebuild the species
There's also a direct Hattah connection to another part of the Mallee Emu-wren story.
Birds from Hattah-Kulkyne National Park have been used as part of a conservation breeding program at Monarto Safari Park in South Australia.
Earlier this year, 17 captive-bred Mallee Emu-wrens were released back into Mallee habitat in South Australia.
It was the first time Mallee Emu-wrens successfully bred in human care had been released into the wild.
That's fairly significant when you consider the species had disappeared from the South Australian wild after major bushfires in 2014.
The breeding program has continued to grow, with 26 birds successfully hatched and fledged at Monarto over three years.
Easy to miss, but worth protecting
The Mallee Emu-wren probably isn't a bird most of us will ever get a good look at.
They're tiny, they spend much of their time hidden in spinifex and they aren't exactly hanging around beside the walking track waiting for a photo.
But they're still out there in some of the Mallee country around us.
And now, thanks to aerial mapping, 3D imagery and a fair bit of work on the ground, researchers are getting a much better idea of where the best habitat might still be hiding.
Not a bad effort for a little bird weighing only a few grams.