Unidentified Birds - Help Please!

Busy day doing a lot of nonsense paperwork, house work, etc. etc - and here I thought I was on holiday! Finally at 6pm I went a walk down by the river thinking I would take some shots of Clisham the cat in the lovely evening light.

As we got on with our photoshoot I turned round to look at the river and there was the heron fishing behind my back! So I dropped to the ground and wriggled along on my stomach and got quite close and got some great shots. Meanwhile Clisham thought this was a great game and started jumping on me and strolling in front of the camera! I was about to take the best shot of the heron taking off (all set on burst mode) and as I pressed the shutter Clisham banged my hand with his head!!

Then I spotted these 2 little fellows having a nap beside the river. They let me get really close and appeared to be tired. When I downloaded everything and went to RSPB bird identifier the closest that I could get to identifying them was Temminck's stint - but they apparently are very rare!! They are probably something much more common like pippets but the markings don't add up. They were not doing any bobbing up and down like dippers so I am open to any identification suggestions. Longshanks or any other birders out there - can you please help?