To say we're chuffed would be an understatement - we're over the moon!

We give a lot to charity one way and another, (at least £500 every year to the Birdfair in Rutland for example), but we've just excelled ourselves and are pretty pleased. This time it's not only to a charity of which we're particularly fond, but it's also one that contributes to the furthering of science and birds as well, the British Trust for Ornithology, the thinking man's RSPB.

At the end of last year we offered them a week's holiday here at the Quinta as the first prize in a raffle that they run every year; they accepted and ran the raffle over the last few months.

Yesterday they got in touch and thanked us for raising with them the princely sum of over £34,000.

Yes, £34,000!!!!

Time for a glass of champagne I think.

Oh yes, we got some lovely shots of a Spectacled Warbler, (above), and this Sardinian Warbler gorging on some emerging flying ants - a red-letter day if ever there was one!