If you’ve ever taken a Sunday stroll along the Merri Creek and noticed a group of people clutching clipboards and buckets, gathering water samples along the bank, there’s a good chance it was one of the nine WaterWatch groups currently active along the Merri and Darebin creeks and tributaries.
WaterWatch is a Victoria-wide citizen-science program dedicated to monitoring waterway health. In the Merri Creek catchment, the program is hosted and supported by MCMC. Through a range of practical, hands-on activities with volunteers and school groups, the program engages local communities to foster understanding and ownership of local water-quality issues.
WaterWatch volunteers the Merri Mayflies
Do you live near the Merri Creek close to the Fawkner area? Are you from a Culturally and Linguistically Diverse or Indigenous Australian background? Do you want to help populations of Growling Grass Frog living near you?
Merri Creek Management Committee is seeking volunteers for a new WaterWatch group, to collect important information about what these precious frogs need to survive and thrive.
Growling Grass Frog (Litoria raniformis), photograph by Anna Lanigan.
“Whenever I’m lucky enough to see a Golden Whistler, it’s always because I’ve heard it first,” says Adi Tudor, a wildlife photographer who enjoys regular walks along Merri Creek. “They’ve got a very beautiful, melodic song. It always takes me by surprise, but it’s such a delight.”
Small insect-eating birds like Golden Whistlers have a preference for habitat where there is dense understorey and mid-storey shrubs to provide protection from larger, more territorial birds. While they are a relatively common species, and not under imminent threat, it’s unusual for them to be seen in the inner-north part of the Merri Creek.
Golden Whistler (Pachycephala pectoralis), photograph by Adi Tudor
In July, Landcare Victoria awarded Merri Creek Management Committee winners of the 2024 Australian Government Community Partnerships Landcare Award. This award acknowledged our work over 35 years, transforming the Merri Creek from a weed-smothered drain to a much-loved waterway running through a picturesque bushland corridor together with our many volunteer and Friends-of groups. We thank the many people that have been part of this ongoing journey and who continue to love the Merri Creek through their volunteering, their advocacy, their donations and their support.
The awards received a record number of 146 nominations over 16 categories. We congratulate all nominees and award winners, including our friends at Darebin Creek Management Committee (DCMC) together with Narrap, the natural resource management unit of Wurundjeri Woi-Wurrung Cultural Heritage Aboriginal Corporation who we work with regularly. Narrap and DCMC won the First Nations Landcare Collaboration Award in recognition of their knowledge sharing and skills exchange with other community organisations.
Merri Creek Management Committee now goes into the National Landcare Awards, which will be announced in June 2025.
Dr Toni Roberts, photograph by Dianna Wells“Wominjeka Wurundjeri balluk yearmann koondee biiik.”
“Welcome to the land of the Wurundjeri people.”
This is the warm and generous greeting, written in Woi-wurrung and endorsed by Wurundjeri Woi-wurrung Elders, which visitors to the marram baba Merri Creek Parklands receive when they view the suite of interpretive and wayfinding signs that were installed in the parklands in July 2023.
A year on from the unveiling of the new signage, the thoughtful work of the project team has been recognised with a win at the Melbourne Design Awards 2024, receiving a Gold Award in the Graphic Design – Environmental Award category.
Long-tailed Bombyx (Trichiocercus sparshalli), photograph by Nayt Housman
Take a walk on the Merri Creek this time of year and you’ll notice the changes that have guided generations of Wurundjeri Woi-wurrung people through the season of Porneet – tadpole season. During Porneet (normally observed in the months of August and September) Pied Currawongs can be heard calling, Grass Candles begin to respond to the warmer temperatures and longer daylight hours, and tadpoles begin to wriggle their tiny tails in their wetland homes.
The first thing that Merri Creek Management Committee’s Nayt Housman notices as Porneet approaches is the dragonflies darting among the grasslands. Nayt is a member of our “bush crew” or Ecological Restoration team, which spends its days caring for the landscapes that hug the banks of the Merri Creek and its tributaries. In rain, hail or shine, Nayt has observed the Merri’s plants and animals for four years, including two as a volunteer and the last eighteen months as a bush crew member.
“The invertebrates are the first to notice the early changes in season,” says Nayt. “You see lots of amazing caterpillars this time of year.”
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See a web version of these fabulous panels which celebrate the outstanding community achievement since 1975 in transforming Merri Creek from a weed-smothered drain to a much-loved waterway running through a bushland corridor: fronts of panels (17MB file); backs of panels (9MB file).
The two metre size panels were originally displayed at libraries and other public places throughout the Merri Creek catchment over 16 months until late 2016, in celebration of MCMC's 25th Anniversary.
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Merri Creek Management Committee. 2 Lee St, East Brunswick, Victoria, Australia 3057 (view map in new window )
Phone:(03) 9380 8199 Email: ABN: 13 025 599 242
© Merri Creek Management Committee
