| December 2024
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| Newsletter of the Merri Creek Management Committee (MCMC) |
| | Krefft's Gliders: the highflyers of the Upper Merri | The Krefft's Glider, one of Australia’s most endearing nocturnal marsupials, is a master of the night. With large eyes and thick grey fur, these tiny mammals can glide distances of 50 metres or more, spreading their limbs to expose soft membranes – known as patagia – and traversing from tree to tree under the cover of darkness.
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Thanks to this remarkable soaring ability Krefft's glider (previously known as Sugar Gliders), rarely descend to the forest floor. Living in small social groups, they nest in tree hollows lined with fresh gum leaves – a characteristic marker of their presence.
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Making Merri at Christmas time | Make your festive season more meaningful this Christmas by choosing gifts that have impact. The Friends of Merri Creek offer four delightful gifts that bring stories of Wurundjeri country into homes, with much of the proceeds* funding the protection of Melbourne’s much-loved waterway. |
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Select pickup when purchasing through the Friends of Merri Creek website, for collection prior to Christmas from Thornbury (exact address shared after purchase). All of these products can also be purchased at the CERES Nursery and Bookstore.
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| Twenty years of restoration...farewell Luisa Macmillan |
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| As Merri Creek Management Committee completes its 35th year of protecting and restoring the Merri Creek, we enter a new organisational chapter, with the departure of former Manager and hugely influential Merri Creek advocate and devotee, Luisa Macmillan. While Luisa completed her Manager role in August 2023, we have continued to benefit from her expertise and experience through a part-time role as Manager, Special Projects, which concluded in October. The MCMC team came together to enjoy Luisa’s last day in the way that Luisa has always loved to spend her time most – outdoors, enriching our shared understanding of the creek and catchment, enjoying views of Herne Swamp and the Upper Merri catchment from Green Hill, and identifying wildflowers at Dolomite Rise, Hidden Valley.
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Gunyang and Biderap | When Lauren Branch walks along the Merri Creek in the hot, dry seasons of Gunyang (kangaroo apple season) and Biderang (hot and dry), there are usually about 20 pairs of little feet following close behind. As a teacher at Coburg’s Barry Beckett Children’s Centre (which enjoys a location just five minutes’ walk from the Merri) Lauren sees the creek as the perfect setting for place-based learning. “Interacting with the creek gives opportunities for STEM (Science, Technology, English and Mathematics) as well as environment and wellbeing,” she says.
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| Happy International Volunteers Week | Here at Merri Creek Management Committee, we celebrated the incredible commitment of volunteers the world over, on International Volunteers Day in December as well as year-round. Thank you! |
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| Volunteers like you achieve so much for the Merri Creek: cleaning up litter, serving on committees to ensure the work of volunteer groups is effective, sharing a connection to nature with others, testing water-quality, planting trees, weeding and monitoring birds and other species.
Happy International Volunteers’ Day to all our wonderful volunteers! |
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Hear from our WaterWatch and Litter Clean-up Coordinator, Julia Cirillo, together with some of the wonderful volunteers from the Merri Platypus Paddle Group about why volunteering makes so much of an impact – for us and for those who do it – in this video.
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| Charting Change:
How vegetation mapping guides our restoration work |
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As Harry White spent the day walking along a long stretch of the Merri Creek lined with big, old red gums and listening to the trickle of water over rocks, he reflected on the joys of working on Wurundjeri Country.
“We were searching for weeds like Chilean Needle Grass, but as we walked, we spotted some Growling Grass Frogs – which hadn’t been seen in that part of the creek for several years – and a Sacred Kingfisher. It was really special.”
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| My Place: Fiona Taylor
| Fiona Taylor is a Humanities and Geography teacher at Coburg High School, a local resident and a member of the Merri Birdies, one of the WaterWatch groups along the Merri Creek.
What’s your favourite spot on the Merri Creek? There are too many to choose! One I love is where we do the Merri Birdies and WaterWatch monitoring with our Coburg High students, opposite De Chene Reserve. It’s quite enclosed under the trees, and the sound of water flowing over the rocks is so peaceful. I also love riding along the track, especially in drizzly rain. I always arrive in the best mood after riding along the creek.
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| Merri Mayflies: citizen scientists of Merri Creek |
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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.
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| 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 |
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