Wurundjeri Woi-wurrung people understand the September and October months as Porneet season on Country. This time has many warmer and sunnier days which plants and animals respond to. In Porneet this year, MCMC's community activities have focussed on birds and we've seen them fluttering around to mate and foraging for nest building materials, and noted that nests range from leafy, twiggy constructions, to  mud lined with feathers, or woven with horsehair!

Merri Creek Primary School students enjoyed spying on three nests by the Merri and saw the arrival of Pacific Black Ducks, Australian Wood Ducks, Chestnut Teals and one Northern Mallard. The children could easily identify these birds by using the Friends of Merri Creek’s brochure: Merri Birds.

During vacation program in Hawkstowe Recreation Reserve in Plenty Gorge Parklands, we observed Australian Wood Ducks searching for food with 11 fluffy chicks, and drew Sacred Kingfishers and learnt about their long journey and special habits.

In Merri-bek, children queued up to have local birds painted on their hands as part of a festival in Coburg. This led to wonderful exchanges about indigenous biodiversity, and to noticing the pinkishness of Kookaburra's beaks and the bluishness of wing feathers, the importance of healthy feet and places to perch, the different shapes of beaks, the long flights for migrating Sacred Kingfishers to visit Merri Creek.

Email if you’d like support to focus on Wurundjeri Woi-wurrung seasons and local plants and animals.

We’re continuing to strengthen our outreach with early years communities in Whittlesea and Hume. We work with educators to explore opportunities that are local, respect indigenous biodiversity and leave no footprint. When we support educators to visit nearby natural areas with young children, we suggest how to think about Bush Kinder and Nature Play differently.

Early years learning programs that take children for walks and exploration have been shown to have strong positive health impacts.

MCMC’s A Little Nature Play program introduces early years educators to walkable beautiful places which you can enjoy with children and leave no footprint.

Our A Little Nature Play program provides opportunities which value children’s social and physical wellbeing. After we get together and explore ideas and places with staff, our goal is to take children out together and encourage long-term independent connections to nearby places.

Please get in touch if you’d like our support: .

To commemorate National Threatened Species Day, the Merri Paddle, a subgroup of Friends of Merri Creek, recently hosted a Roundtable of Stakeholders to discuss ways to bring platypus back to the Merri. Participants from member councils (Cities of Hume, Whittlesea, Merri-bek and Yarra) and organisations, including Melbourne Water, the EPA, DEECA & AQUEST (RMIT), presented and participated in discussions on practical solutions for improving Merri Creek at specific sites to facilitate an increase in platypus numbers on the Merri. Besides Merri Paddle and Friends of Merri Creek, the community was represented by Rotary, Bacchus Marsh Platypus Alliance and MCMC. The event was a positive, collaborative and pragmatic approach that we hope will solidify and create new partnerships in order to reduce pollution levels in the Merri.

To learn more about the Merri Paddle group go to: https://www.friendsofmerricreek.org.au/merri-paddle

Sincere thanks to the funders of the event: Melbourne Water, Friends of Merri Creek, MCMC and the City of Merri-bek with support from DEECA and the City of Darebin.

In July 2023, MCMC received a fresh batch of 180 Silver Banksia seedlings (Banksia marginata, tree form) from the Friends of the Forgotten Woodlands, a volunteer group who have been working hard to rebuild the Banksia, Bursaria and Sheoak woodlands that were once a keystone in the ecology of the Victorian Volcanic Plains. Together with 50 seedlings grown by VINC, these plants will be added into our Tree Banksia Orchard which was established in Fawkner last year with help from many volunteers and support from the Merri Creek Environment Fund. The Orchard currently brings together genetic material from 10 different Silver Banksia populations across the volcanic plains, alongside material from three populations growing in locations whose current climate matches Melbourne’s future modelled climate. We will add provenances from Clarkfield and Eynesbury to the mix, bringing the number of volcanic plains populations represented in the Orchard to 12. A successful planting with LGBTIQ Friends of Bababi Djinanang was held on Saturday 12th August.

In the first week of August 2023, MCMC welcomed our new Executive Officer, Bernadette Thomas, taking over the baton from Luisa Macmillan, MCMC Manager of more than 21 years. Bernadette comes to us with a wealth of experience, most recently as a sustainability consultant and prior to that, as Manager, Sustainable Environment, at Hume City Council for 12 years. Bernadette brings her experience of managing Hume’s Conservation Estate; climate, energy, and water programs; strategy and policy development; and environment community development and leadership programs. Bernadette said that she is delighted to begin working alongside an experienced team and continuing the important legacy created by so many current and former staff and volunteers.

Luisa remains at MCMC for the time being in a part-time capacity, assisting with the transition and working on priority environmental planning projects.

MCMC supports educators, from early years to tertiary level, to teach Indigenous perspectives with local biodiversity references and stories. In 2022 we led the first Community of Practice gathering in Darebin to situate Merri Creek’s catchment, especially our waterways and biodiversity and to support educator’s local connection to Wurundjeri Woi-wurrung Country, seasons, and language.

In our aim to connect educators to Wurundjeri Woi-wurrung Country, and as non-Indigenous educators, we follow advice which asks us not to tell First Nations People's creation stories. Instead, we are able to connect interculturally with stories about different concepts of seasons or material stories such as those about uses of indigenous plants, various plant language names and signs around us such as about the name ‘Merri Creek.’ Few people comprehend this as a bilingual phrase: Merri (Woi-wurrung) and Creek (English).

In July 2023 we were joined by people from 17 organisations at our second gathering in NAIDOC Week. We spent time on our ecoliteracy by drawing indigenous plants and noting their Wurundjeri Woi-wurrung language names, where they are known.

A key highlight was a presentation by the principal of Northcote High School, Chris Jones, about decolonising the school’s library - see The Age article about this.

MCMC supported Yarra and Merri-bek Libraries’ vacation programs with very well-attended activities that highlighted NAIDOC Week (2023) and local indigenous plants. Together we thought about Wurundjeri Woi-wurrung Country, language, seasons and plants using a variety of resources. Kids joined in very enthusiastically and produced many carefully produced booklets illustrated with their own botanic drawings.

We met in the Woi-wurrung season waring which spans April to July, Melbourne’s coldest months which correspond to winter. The indigenous plants we worked with in NAIDOC Week reflected the season, especially in relation to the lack of new flowers which occurs in later stages depending on the plant. We used The Plants of Coranderrk as a guide to plant names in Woi-wurring.

The indigenous plants we spent time becoming familiar with by touching, sniffing and drawing, included bowat (Poa labillardierei, Common Tussock-grass), garawun (Lomandra longifolia, Spiny-headed Mat-rush), galertiwan (Pomaderis aspera, Hazel Pomaderris) and muyan (Acacia dealbata, Silver wattle).

For help with such an activity, email:

Our support of early years communities doing Bush Kinder and Nature Play programs in local natural areas continues to strengthen with projects funded by the Cities of Whittlesea and Hume. MCMC’s philosophy reflects both the state education requirements for early years and local government concerns about the impacts on public open spaces. Our philosophy is: Leave no footprint; Listen to children; Acknowledge Wurundjeri Country in age-appropriate ways; Respect early years educators.

For more on the benefits of these progams, follow the read more prompt.

Striking new interpretative and way-finding signs were installed in July 2023 in parts of marram baba Merri Creek Parklands,  many at Galada Tamboore, an area of public parkland on the Merri Creek north of the Ring Rd. With permission from Wurundjeri Woi-wurrurng Elders, the signs include a welcome in Woi-wurrung and an arresting logo designed by Lewis Wandin-Burstall. Four of the signs include text provided by Wurundjeri Elder, Aunty Doreen Garvey-Wandin.

The project was funded by the State Government and led by Merri Creek Management Committee on behalf of the marram baba Parkland Partners - the Cities of Hume and Whittlesea, Mitchell Shire, Melbourne Water, Yarra Valley Water, Parks Victoria and the Wurundjeri Woi-wurrung Cultural Heritage Aboriginal Corporation.

A small but enthusiastic group of Year 12 Geography students from Whittlesea Secondary College joined MCMC at Merri Creek in Donnybrook to conduct WaterWatch physical chemical testing of parameters such as salinity (EC), pH, turbidity, temperature and nutrients (phosphate and ammonium). 

This testing site is downstream of new housing developments and just upstream of the confluence of Kalkallo Creek. Both creeks and nearby dams and wetlands support an important population of endangered Growling Grass Frogs (Litoria raniformis). The students were studying the ecological impacts of urban development on waterways.