As the length of days and nights become even and warmer temperatures are felt in Porneet season on Wurundjeri Woi-wurrung Country, you could be lucky enough to see a Sacred Kingfisher show itself along the Merri Creek as it hunts for grasshoppers, crickets, beetles, frogs, yabbies, and skinks amongst the grasses and bushes of the Merri Creek and surrounds.

Sacred Kingfisher (Todiramphus sanctus)

Fauna monitoring at Hidden Valley Bushland Reserve (in the north of the Merri Creek catchment) has revealed exciting footage of the Slender-tailed Dunnart, a small marsupial that relies on healthy ground cover habitat for the insects it loves to eat.

MCMC's CEO Bernadette Thomas. Image by Landcare Australia. At the National Landcare Awards on September 23rd, Merri Creek Management Committee was awarded the Australian Government Community Partnerships Landcare Award. 

This is recognition of the work of many people over decades to repair, restore and protect the Merri Creek and catchment. Congratulations everyone!

The Award acknowledges individuals, groups, or organisations that have demonstrated leadership and achievement in landcare-related activities, as a result of working in partnership with others in their community.

Contratulations to all the other 2025 National Landcare Award winners. 

When: 10am - 12pm, Sunday 12th October  

Join Merri Creek Management Committee’s ecologists for a walk around bababi marning (Cooper St Grassland) in Campbellfield, home to Golden Sun Moths, Matted Flax-lilies and a host of other grassland species.

When: 10am - 12pm, Sunday 9th November

Explore galgi ngarrk (Craigieburn Grassland) and Curly Sedge Creek, and learn about the rare and threatened species that inhabit this unique location.

Merri Creek Management Committee Fundraising Subcommittee is undergoing a refresh. We are now looking for a number of creative, organised, and proactive specialist fundraisers to join us to lead and support our ongoing fundraising activities. As a Subcommittee member you’ll work with others and play a key role in planning what our fundraising future looks like and getting your hands dirty organising activities.

Long time Friends of Merri Creek (FoMC) member Jonathan Tickner has created this handy guide to birding along the Merri, and is kindly donating all proceeds to FoMC! You can purchase the book here.

From Jonathan, "(I'm) very pleased to announce the publication of my eBook, all proceeds of which will be donated to FoMC. The illustrated guide helps birders who are starting on their birding journey or who aren’t familiar with the creek, providing maps, detailed descriptions of locations and the birds you may find there at different times of the year. Plus, it is a celebration of the bird life along the creek, through my photography. A printed version of the book can soon be ordered too."

More about the book: A helpful guide to birders who want to explore the Merri Creek, enhance their birding skills and get to know the birds that visit the various habitats along the creek. The booklet includes detailed instructions of how to get to and navigate each location, clear maps, lists of birds that are found at each location at different times of the year, and stunning photographs of birds.

When the sun sets over the grasslands, and traffic noise from the nearby highway begins to ease, Curly Sedge Creek begins to reveal its secrets.

During a night-time frog survey, something rare catches the beam of a torch: the delicate, distinctive spirals of Curly Sedge, unmistakable even in the dark. Nearby, the low, throaty call of a Growling Grass Frog cuts through the stillness. For Yasmin Kelsall, Environmental Planning Lead for MCMC, it's a moment of quiet revelation – proof that this overlooked stretch of creek could still offer refuge for threatened species.

Thanks to the support of our community during last year’s Growling Grass Frog campaign, MCMC has been able to confirm the species' presence in and around Curly Sedge Creek. Surveys have been conducted at four sites – two on the creek itself, one at O’Herns Swamp, and another on Merri Creek.

MCMC's Yasmin Kelsall at Curly Sedge Creek. Photograph by Annette Ruzicka Photography. 

Just a short walk from Curly Sedge Creek, a new kind of farm is growing: one that’s as focused on caring for Country as it is on growing plants.

Wollert Community Farm is an exciting partnership between Whittlesea Community Connections and Yarra Valley Water, developed with the support of Melbourne Polytechnic and the City of Whittlesea, one of Merri Creek Management Committee’s six member councils. The farm is designed as a place where community, conservation and cultivation meet: combining social enterprise, environmental education, First Nations-led activities, local food growing, and hands-on restoration of the land.

At MCMC we love hearing the ways that our fellow Merri Creek catchment lovers are caring for Merri tributaries – including the little-known Curly Sedge Creek, where we have ambitious plans, that support, align with and extend those of the Wollert Community Farm.

Wollert Community Farm's nugal biik conservation volunteers. Photo by Julia Cirillo

As a child, Doug Frood was, in his own words, “that weird kid” – the one who loved insects, rocks and birds, and spent as much time as possible walking and camping in nature.

“Plants were my specialty,” he says. “Partly because I’m short-sighted and they don’t fly away like birds do. But also, I’ve just always had an affinity for them.”

That early passion for plants grew into a career as a botanical field ecologist. In the late 1980s and early 90s, Doug was working for the Victorian Government when he first spent time surveying grasslands along the Merri Creek. 

Doug Frood at Curly Sedge Creek. Photograph by Annette Ruzicka Photography.