Former Spanish monetary unit

The past 150 years has seen many hardships, but through it all, Sale City Band has been there, playing loud and proud, serving the Sale community.

150-year celebrations postponed

CELEBRATIONS planned for the 150th anniversary of Sale City Band have been postponed. Throughout the ins and outs of restrictions and lockdowns this year, the band has continued rehearsals where it could, and has been planning for a celebratory concert, to be performed in late 2022. The band will also be back out in the community performing in open spaces beginning this Saturday at the clocktower in Sale. Local residents should keep their eyes peeled and toes tapping. Photo: Contributed

Red Necked Stints weigh in at just 30 grams and fly more than 10,000km on their southern migration to feed in areas like Corner Inlet.

Photo: Grainne Maguire Globetrotting waders return to Corner Inlet

WITH humans travelling less right now, it’s good to know that the international flight schedules of migratory shorebirds, known as waders, are still right on time. Saturday was World Migratory Wader Day, and West Gippsland Catchment Management Authority used the opportunity to pay tribute to the globetrotting waders of Corner Inlet and all who care for them. Each spring, these internationally recognised wetlands become a popular destination for birds flying in from the Northern Hemisphere. Known as waders, the shorebirds feed along the mudflats and sandy shores for six months until they take flight to cross the globe again. The distances these birds travel are enormous, yet many of these birds are tiny. Corner Inlet regularly supports an estimated 29,000 waders (migratory and non-migratory). This represents more than 21.5 per cent of the total known Victorian wader population. Of the migratory types, the authority’s water project officer, Tanya Cowell, says the Red Necked Stint is one of her “personal favourites”. Weighing in at less than 30 grams – the stints spend the northern summer nesting in the Siberian tundra before taking off on their more than 10,000 kilometre migration south, stopping to refuel on the muddy shores of the Yellow Sea. Some stints choose to stop in northern Australia,

while Victoria’s intrepid travellers continue across the continent to Corner Inlet. At the other end of the size scale, the Eastern Curlew is Australia’s largest wader, and also relies on the protected shores of Corner Inlet. Their long, curved bills are perfect for probing mudflats for small crabs and molluscs. Listed as ‘vulnerable’ in Victoria, Eastern Curlews are listed as critically endangered at a federal level. Migratory birds are protected across their ‘flyways’ through a range of agreements including the East Asian-Australasian Flyway Partnership. The Ramsar Convention on Wetlands of International Importance is another protection measure. Signed in 1971, in the small Iranian town of Ramsar, the agreement between nations aims to conserve important wetlands across the world. Each Ramsar-listed wetland has a coordinator that works with partners and community to help protect it. West Gippsland Catch Management Authority is the site coordinator for Corner Inlet. The inlet’s lands and waters have significant cultural value to the Traditional Land Owners, the Gunaikurnai and Bunurong people. It is estimated the inlet supports 50 per cent of Victoria’s overwintering migratory waders.