Elanora Heights Primary School - Macquarie Marshes research

Fifth Graders have been studying this ecosystem and writing their own web pages to display their findings. Click here to see a list of the creatures they have studied.

Below is an attempt to show the food chain of the Macquarie Marsh Ecosystem.

The energy of the Sun helps plants grow.
Water Plants				Grasses and Other Land Plants
Insects	Turtles	Fish	Frogs	Insects	Birds	Small Mammals	Large Mammals	Humans
Birds Frogs Lizards	Birds	Birds Humans	Birds Snakes	Birds Frogs Lizards	Big Birds Foxes Cats Reptiles	Birds Foxes Cats, Dogs Reptiles	Humans	Some Snakes
Bush Fly Maggots and some Beetles feed on animal droppings. Scavengers, house fly and blow fly maggots, and ants feed on dead animals. Fungus, termites and other insects feed on dead leaves and plant matter.
Animal droppings plus dead animals and plants enrich the soil and water to enable plants to grow.

to see a list of 14 amphibians, 199 birds, 18 mammals and 46 reptiles that live in the Macquarie Marshes.

Children at Quambone Primary School on the edge of the Macquarie Marshes are helping us with this project and one of their fathers is Ranger Ray of the Parks and Wildlife Service who is answering some of our questions.

Hi Kids,
Thank you for your interest in the Macquarie Marshes. Before I answer your questions I thought I would just give you a bit of background on the Marsh and its importance.

The Macquarie Marshes is a large fresh water marsh situated about 2/3 of the way along the Macquarie River. It covers an area of about 180,000ha and is mostly used for farming and grazing on the rich flood plain. The Nature Reserve I look after is the core wetland and is 18,000ha in size.

The Marsh has various important functions, one of which is to act as a large filter cleaning the water as it comes down the river. The water entering the Marsh spreads out through very large reed beds which slows it down and it drops silt and is strained so that the muddy water entering goes back into the river at the end of the Marsh clean and clear. This filtering helps to stop things like "blue green algea" blooms.

The Marsh is an internationally recognised waterbird breeding area, particularly for waterbirds like Egrets and Ibis which nest in large colonies of many thouand breeding pairs. The Marsh is also important for migratory birds that come here from the northern hemisphere to escape the cold winter. Birds such as the Japanese Snipe, Sandpipers and Godwitts come from as far away as Siberia, China and Japan. Because of these birds the Macquarie Marshes is listed on several international bird agreements such as Jamba (with Japan) and Camba (with China) which help protect the birds as they travel. It is also listed on the Ramsar Convention of internationally recognised wetlands. The Marsh has a variety of vegetation which includes large fragmities (common reed) reed beds, Red Gum forests and areas of lignum, Coolibah and water couch, all of which are needed to povide nesting and feed areas for the waterbirds.
I would like to thank you for your interest and just add that although things like Feral Animals can cause big problems, the biggest threat to the Macquarie Marshes is a reduced water supply. Now that there are large towns and industries such as mining and irrigation which use large amounts of water, (water that used to come down to the Marshes), the Marshes don't get the flooding that they used to get. This has caused problems with areas drying out and dying. The Marsh is shrinking which is affecting the number of birds that breed here (the size of bird breedings is tied directly to the amount of flooding the Marsh receives). The big challenge for all involved with the Macquarie Marshes is to manage and keep this area beautiful with a reduced amount of water.

Bye for now. Ranger Ray.

to see a page about Quambone on the edge of the Macquarie Marshes and there is even a picture of a feral pig shoot on this page.

The Macquarie Marsh Ecosystem

But first, would you like to know more about the area?

Did you know that on our website we have a page of information about the Macquarie River that flows through the Macquarie Marshes?

The energy of the Sun helps plants grow.

Here is the list of the creatures studied so far by the children :-

Amphibians

Birds

Mammals

Reptiles

Insects :

Elanora Heights Primary School Computer Co-ordinator : Judith Bennett