Slim pickings.

Male Whinchat, Dumfriesshire May 2012.

Another week of the spring gone with little to write home about apart from working in glorious weather in Scotland. Very quiet on the Solway apart from two migrant Spotted Flycatchers in the golf course copse at Southerness and singing Reed Warbler (scarce in Dumfries & Galloway) in the reed bed in nearby Gillfoot Bay.

"Sandstorm" at Mersehead, Dumfries & Galloway.

We spent the weekend birding the Southerness area, checking the local wader flocks at the point and on the Nith Estuary at Carse Bay. Plenty of Ringed Plovers and Dunlins but alas nothing more interesting than a couple of Sanderling amongst them.

Back on the Ribble this morning checking out Marshside RSPB (pretty quiet as far as I could see) when I bumped into Graham Clarkson. We teamed up to cover Hesketh Out Marsh (male Wheatear, 2 Greenshanks, 40 Avocet) and had just about finished there when the news came through that a Temminck's Stint was at Martin Mere WWT. Quarter of an hour later we were there, 'scoping a very distant small wader and rather more "gingery" than I was expecting having just seen quite a few in Lesvos of late (like the one pictured above). Must've been a trick of the light.