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.

“I got Atticus when he was four months old, and he’s an absolute pocket rocket. He’s like 10 border collies in one,” laughs ecologist and conservation dog handler Annett Finger. “He has so much drive that I have to do some kind of work or training with him on every walk we take. If I don’t, he pesters me!”

That intense energy is now being channelled into an unlikely conservation partnership. Together, Annett and Atticus are working with Merri Creek Management Committee (MCMC) to try and detect one of Victoria’s most elusive native plants – the critically endangered Matted Flax-Lily (Dianella amoena) – at Curly Sedge Creek and the surrounding galgi ngarrk grasslands.

Atticus identifying Dianella. Photograph by Annett Finger.

Tucked behind the industrial fringes of Craigieburn, hidden from view by housing developments and highways, lies a unique patch of remnant grassland. And at its heart: Curly Sedge Creek.

Meandering through galgi ngarrk (formerly Craigieburn Grassland Conservation Reserve), this little-known tributary of Merri Creek still supports a remarkable array of life, including Growling Grass Frogs, Golden Sun Moths, and Latham’s Snipe.

Most significantly, it is Melbourne’s only stronghold for the nationally endangered Curly Sedge, described by MCMC’s Environmental Planning Lead Yasmin Kelsall as one of our most important local plants. 

In February, a group of Merri Creek supporters came together at galada tamboore to celebrate the beginning of work on the marram baba Future Directions Plan and the funding of new initiatives and projects that are part of implementing the plan. The plan is the culmination of many years of work by MCMC and the members of the Parklands Partnership, towards a vision for continuous public parklands along Merri Creek.

MCMC President Ann McGregor says the contribution of many organisations has resulted in a plan that can make a real difference to creatures that call the Merri home, like the Little Eagle and Golden Sun Moth, as well as the future residents of new suburbs who will be able to connect with nature in the Parklands.

marram baba Merri Creek Regional Parklands. Photograph by Dom McKenzie.

If you moved through the Merri landscape in March, you may have noticed as the browns and yellows of biderap (dry, hot season for Wurundjeri Woi-wurrung people) gave way to the flowering of Manna Gum as iuk, the season where the length of days and nights shift until they are of equal length.

But below the surface of the Merri waters another story was unfolding, as it has for millenia: while waterbirds waded and insects darted above the water, in the depths of the Merri, Short-finned eels were maturing after an incredible journey that began as larvae in the salt waters of the Coral Sea, off the coast of Far North Queensland. These eels spend ten years or more in the fresh water of the Merri before metamorphosing into Silver eels. These eels inform the Wurundjeri name for this season: iuk means “eel”.

As we enter warin season, MCMC begins our Autumn burns season. We share our story of the growth of our burning program originally published in our recent 2022–2024 Biennial Report. Read the full report here.

In the remnant plains grasslands of the Merri Creek valley, the delicate, star-shaped flowers of the Matted Flax-Lily add a vibrant splash of violet to the landscape. The grasslands are slowly healing, responding to an ecological burn program spanning 30 years. In 2023, this included clearing of invasive weeds and grassy biomass, creating the conditions for native wildflowers to flourish.

Autumn burn at Bababi djinanang, Fawkner. Photograph by MCMC's Michael Longmore.