This project honours the Wurundjeri Woi-wurrung people as the Traditional Owners of the lands and waterways of the Merri Merri, and recognises their continuing connection to Country.

About this project

What this is

This project answers one question: What season is it?

Not the Gregorian calendar's four seasons, but the seven seasons of the Wurundjeri Woi-wurrung calendar—a system shaped by sustained, careful attention to this specific place.

The site is hyper-local: it concerns only the Merri Creek and its catchment, the traditional lands of the Wurundjeri people.

Two knowledge systems

This project holds two knowledge systems in relationship, not collapsed into one another:

Wurundjeri seasonal knowledge
Structural and authoritative. The seasons, their names, their meanings, and the ecological indicators that mark them come from Wurundjeri knowledge holders. This knowledge is held, not owned, and shared with respect.
Ecological observation data
Evidentiary and provisional. Observation records, climate data, and phenology analysis provide supporting evidence. These sources document patterns but do not define seasons.

The data serves the framework, not the reverse.

Data sources

The ecological data shown here comes from:

  • GBIF — the Global Biodiversity Information Facility aggregates occurrence records from iNaturalist, museums, and herbaria worldwide. Used for phenology timing analysis.
  • Atlas of Living Australia — aggregated biodiversity data including historical museum and herbarium specimens, some dating back to the 1850s.
  • Bureau of Meteorology (SILO) — daily climate grids (temperature, rainfall) from 1889 to present.

Methodology notes

Community science data has known biases: observations cluster where people go, when people have time, and what people find interesting. A spike in observations might mean more flowers—or more observers.

We attempt to account for this through statistical methods that separate observation patterns from ecological patterns. Melbourne's COVID lockdowns (2020-2021) provide a natural experiment: lockdowns changed when and where people could observe, but did not affect when plants flowered.

The phenology charts and timing analyses shown on species pages should be understood as provisional—our best current estimate, subject to revision as methods and data improve.

What this is not

This project is not:

  • Definitive — For Wurundjeri seasonal knowledge, consult the Wurundjeri Woi-wurrung Cultural Heritage Aboriginal Corporation directly
  • Comprehensive — This covers only the Merri Creek, not all of Wurundjeri Country, and certainly not all of Victoria
  • A dashboard — The site updates weekly, not in real-time
  • Static — The science is ongoing; analyses and data sources will evolve

Technical details

The site is built with Elixir and generates static HTML weekly. Statistical analysis uses R with brms for Bayesian hierarchical models.

Source code is available at github.com/cigrainger/theseason.au.