Desolate shores draw birds and birders

Anthorn, Solway Firth But it is the waders that drew us to the remote Solway estuary. Mudflats, marshes and tidal sands create a wetland teeming with lapwings, oystercatchers, dunlins and curlews, the high tide pushing them onto their saltmarsh roosts

"Time is a thing," says our minibus driver, with her duffle coat pegged up against the crisp westerlies as we alight in a layby near Campfield Marsh. "Like a bird on the wing."

"Come again?" asks a guy with Zeiss binoculars. "Just seems apt when we're near Anthorn," came the reply. "Birds everywhere. Like it says in the song we sang at school. There - look!" She points across the glittering upper Solway in the direction of Criffel (570m) as barnacle geese fly honking by, necks outstretched. "Birds on the wing!" As we watch, transfixed, she adds: "And over there? See those masts? Time!"