| September 2024
|
| Newsletter of the Merri Creek Management Committee (MCMC) |
| | Golden hour: a surprise visitor to Merri Creek | “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.
| |
|
|
|---|
Design award win for marram baba
Merri Creek Parklands signage | “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.
| |
| |
|---|
| 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.
| |
|
|---|
| My Place: Claudia James
| Merri eNews talks to Claudia James, President of the Wallan Environment Group.
Tributaries of the Merri Creek (Wallan, Taylors, Mittagong and Stathaird Creeks) run through the growing town of Wallan, on the northern edge of suburban Melbourne, where Claudia James has led the group since 2016.
| |
How is caring for waterways in Wallan different from other parts of the catchment?
Rapid urban development is our greatest challenge. Much time is spent advocating for the protection, extension and connection of public open spaces aligning the creek lines. As new subdivisions arise there is also the need to advocate for the protection of valuable remnant vegetation and natural wetlands, along with the connectivity of habitat for native species. Another point of difference is that the Merri tributaries mainly flow through private property in Wallan – only short, disconnected stretches of Wallan, Taylors and Mittagong creeks are accessible to the public. This means that advocating strongly for the best planning outcomes, at both local and state government levels, for the Merri Creek is really important.
| |
|
|
|---|
Growling Grass Frog fans answer its call
| In the early hours of a Melbourne morning, Danny Reddan can be found running a ten-kilometre route along the urban waterways of his inner-Melbourne neighbourhood. As he rounds the stretch of trail that takes him past the Moomba Park Wetlands, his mind turns to the Growling Grass Frogs he knows are busying themselves nearby. |
| |
|---|
“Growling Grass Frogs just remind me of my childhood in Warrnambool,” says Danny. “I was always out chasing frogs and lizards and so I have an idea of what habitat on the Merri Creek and its tributaries would once have been like – and what they could be like again too, if we work hard enough, if we come together as a community.”
| |
| Pencil and paper bring plants into focus at Bracken Creek
|
|
|---|
| The wattles of the Wurundjeri season of Guling were bursting into colour as fourteen members of the newly formed Friends of Bracken Creek put down their trowels and trays of tube stock to pick up tools they were far less familiar with – pencils and paper.
“Some people were a bit reluctant at first,” says group founder Melanie Del Monaco. “They thought they couldn’t draw.” |
|
|---|
The sentiment is a familiar one to environmental educator Angela Foley from Merri Creek Management Committee, who facilitated the learning and is used to giving participants time to recognise themselves as both artists and scientists.
| |
| Melbourne Water rejoins Merri Creek Management Committee
| After 25 years living in Melbourne, Victoria Penko couldn’t imagine the city without the Merri Creek. “Well, there’s no Melbourne without the Merri Creek, is there?” she laughs. |
|
|---|
As Head of Waterway and Catchment Services North West for Melbourne Water, Victoria describes Merri Creek Management Committee as “a pioneering trail-blazer in collaborative waterway management”. With these sentiments in mind, it was a “no-brainer” to rejoin as an MCMC member organisation last month, an announcement which MCMC President Ann McGregor describes as “a very welcome move”. |
| |
|---|
“Melbourne Water is the primary waterway management authority for Melbourne and the Merri Creek, so a closer relationship will benefit both organisations,” says Ann. “We already enjoy a good relationship at the operational level, but having Melbourne Water on our Committee of Management will open up many other opportunities for collaboration and mutual support.”
| |
| Merri Creek Management Committee. 2 Lee St, East Brunswick, Victoria, Australia 3057
Phone:(03) 9380 8199 Email: admin@mcmc.org.au
Not interested any more? Unsubscribe from all emails from MCMC. Have you been forwarded this newsletter and you would like to subscribe? Do you want to receive email notifications of Merri Creek events? Go to https://mcmc.org.au/get-involved/subscribe |
|
|---|
| |
