Top dollar top banana birding optics up for grabs

The Safari has been approached by a friend who is selling his Swarovski 10x42 EL Field Pro 2015 model. Brand new, hot off the factory floor, only purchased 6th November. They've barely been out of the box never mind the house and then no further than the back door step. He says unfortunately he just can't take to them and would accept £1600. Best prices around the web seem to be touching the 1800 quid mark so a fair bit of a saving to be made.

If anyone is seriously interested drop a comment in the box below, email, Twitter, Facebook, carrier pigeon etc and we'll pass him on to you.

Knock a nought off the end and we've have them for an upgrade on our trusty early 21st C ELs but sadly we're skint as ever. 

In bird news this morning was the liveliest the garden has been since we've been incapacitated by a mile. There was a visit from a flock of Long Tailed Tits which included at least one of each of Blue, Great and Coal Tits. Some of the Long Tails and the Coal Tit even used the feeders, the Coal Tit returning several times after the rest of the flock had moved on.

Later a Blackbird popped in, wonder if there are still any windfall Apples at the bottom of the garden - been too wet n windy to even contemplate going all the way up there - it's only 50 feet (17m)! If not we've got some in the fruit bowl which are more likely to end up in the garden than on our plate.

Not too long after that a Goldfinch and a Greenfinch were on the feeder at the same time with not another of their finchy brethren in sight and what looked like a Robin darted onto the small feeder then darted off never to be seen again. No chance of any pics - far too dark.

By late morning that flurry of activity was but a distant memory as even thicker cloud and yet more rain swept in on the quickening wind as Storm Barney approached.

What's with all this naming of Atlantic depressions? Doesn't make them any less wet n windy nor does it make them any more wet n windy - Come Easter they'll have run out of names anyway if this winter is anything like a normal winter with the usual procession of storms racing in. Do we really  have to copy the Americans in everything???
In the absence of any pics from us here's a couple from our Extreme Photographer, the first a not so welcome visitor to his extremely busy bird feeders but cute all the same

And who remembers this handsome chappy - when was the last time anyone saw him at the nature reserve? Don't think he's been seen this year but was he there last winter?

Where to next? We were hoping to get a little drive to the Prom in today but earlier had to move the car for our neighbours to get by, no way, not ready yet - struggled to put it in gear! Maybe tomorrow the duff hand will be a little bit better.

In the meantime let is know who's leave of absence has ended in your outback