Main Creek Biolink

 

Main Creek biolink

Main Creek biolink properties form a corridor from Splitters Creek at the intersection of Main Creek and Old Main Creek Rd, down to Splitters Creek’s junction with Main Creek. The biolink area comprising the 12 properties has connectivity with sites containing major ecological assets, including the Greens Bush section of Mornington Peninsula National Park. A number of the biolink properties also contain significant ecological assets themselves. Splitters Creek runs through 7 of the 12 biolink properties.

Map key*
Orange – Peninsula-wide biolinks; light-green – Watson Creek biolink; pink – Devilbend biolink (Western Linkage); purple – Sheepwash Creek biolink; darker green – Main Creek biolink; blue – Southwest Mornington Peninsula (SWMP) biolink
* Note that these shadings apply only when you are viewing the map in the default ‘Satellite’ view.

About Main Creek Catchment

Main Creek is the longest stream on the Peninsula, rising near Arthurs Seat summit and discharging its waters into Bushranger Bay, east of Cape Schanck. Main Creek catchment includes Green Bush, the largest remnant area of bushland on the Peninsula. Micro-environments created partly by tributaries of Main Creek and other streams host a range of vegetation communities including fern gullies. For example, in Greens Bush major Main Creek tributary Lightwood Creek flows through some almost undisturbed fern communities and where the overlying sands deepen and the forest opens out to heathland, Austral Grass-trees grow.

Alongside Main Creek there are still patches of open forest dominated by Messmate (Eucalyptus obliqua) including some old enough to support hollows suitable for native animals such as Sugar Gliders and the Little Forest Bat. In the forest canopy are birds that probe bark such as the White throated Treecreeper, the Crested Shrike Tit and the Varied Sittella with its beautiful musical song. Higher up still there are nectarivores such as the White Eared Honeyeater, and the Spotted Pardalote which actually nests in a burrow in a sandy bank.