Merri Creek Management Committee
After a busy start to 2021 and the ups and downs of numerous lockdowns, MCMC is celebrating two recent successful grant applications, both focused on waterway restoration:
-$21,030 from Melbourne Water’s Corridors of Green program for the project, 'High Density Living: Improving Habitat Structure for Rare Merri Birds,' which aims to extend dense shrub habitat for rarely seen Pink Robins and Rose Robins, along Merri Creek in Thornbury, between Normanby Avenue and the Harding St bridge, where they've lately been seen.
- $21,687 from the Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning’s Port Phillip Bay Fund for the project, 'Building up the banks of Brunswick,' which aims to repair riparian vegetation in Brunswick East, damaged by heavy use during recent lockdowns, as well as improve streambank stability and provide training to increase awareness of stream health.
Stay tuned to our event calendar for ways in which you can be involved in these projects.
Merri Creek Management Committee (MCMC) has successfully applied to use the residual funds in the Growling Grass Frog (GGF) Trust. MCMC’s project will develop a masterplan to guide better planning and habitat outcomes for Growling Grass Frogs in the lowest part of the Merri Creek corridor where these endangered fogs are known to occur. We'll be scoping the area from Moomba Park, Fawkner, northwards to Cooper St, Somerton.
MCMC is storing 300 large pots of the endangered Matted Flax-lily Dianella ameona at its depot in Brunswick East. The plants were orginally part of a PhD research project into pollination at the University of Melbourne Burnley Campus, but are now destined for various sites in the Merri parklands in Fawkner, to extend pollination pathways.
The University gave the plants to MCMC after an infestation of Thrips changed the focus of the research project from pollination to Thrips. The GPS location of all plants will be recorded and the plantings arranged so that both large and small populations are located in sites of both poor and good quality vegetation to allow for future research projects on pollination.
Twice annually, the Citizen Science Water Quality program, MCMC Waterwatch, offers free workshops to train new volunteers interested in keeping an eye on the health of Merri Creek and other local waterways.
Due to COVID-19 restrictions, part of this workshop on 17 June 2021 was run online. This workshop was recorded and is now available as a two part training webinar.
Participants who watch the webinar and fill in the feedback form can join us for the field work component, which, once completed, makes them fully-fledged Waterwatch monitors.
After an action-packed couple of months, our busiest burning season yet is at an end (November 2021).
This autumn we conducted 14 ecological burns in grassland vegetation. Eight of these were at Merri sites and 6 at other locations across greater Melbourne, including a few sites that haven’t seen a fire for several decades. We’re very excited to see what grassland treasures emerge from these reserves this spring!
Follow the 'read more' prompt to see MCMC drone footage of the eco-burn at Ngarri-djarrang, a grassland reserve in Reservoir next to Central Creek, a tributary of Merri Creek.
Merri Events Calendar
| 29 Mar 2023; 09:30AM - 11:30AM Friends of Coburg Lake & Surrounds Wednesday Working Bee |
| 31 Mar 2023; 09:30AM - 11:30AM Friends of Coburg Lake & Surrounds Weekly Friday Working Bee |
| 01 Apr 2023; 10:00AM - 12:00PM Friends of Merri Park Working Bee |
| 01 Apr 2023; 10:00AM - 12:30PM Waterwatch Waterbug Community Sampling (2023) - Darebin |
| 01 Apr 2023; 11:00AM - 02:00PM Edgars Creek Community Planting Day |
| 02 Apr 2023; 10:00AM - 01:00PM Waterwatch Waterbug community sampling |
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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: admin@mcmc.org.au ABN: 13 025 599 242
© Merri Creek Management Committee
