Grear day on sunday. Mega hot again. picked up some great exotic bird books. first get the books then save up to visit seems to be my way. had a good chat with Mark Carwardine. The guy who did last chance to see with Firstly Douglas Adams and later with Stephen Fry. great bloke and some funny stories. i missed seeing Bill Oddie around though. Gutted new top end Canon camera on show. bl##dy expensive though. i was surprised by how good the Pentax scopes were. Very good. not a make i had ever looked at but very good. In resoloution tests these were beating some of the big boys. If you get chance have a look through one. Spent most of my free time chatting with birding holiday reps trying to get tips on places. A good show. All companies had a good showing. Canon were still showing the 200-400 with built in converter taking it to 560 but would not let us take any test shots on a card. this lens has been on hold for ages now. Seems too long to me. There obviously still not happy with it. This lens has been coming for years it seems. Something dont feel right. I have a funny feeling it might not be as good as they hoped. just have to wait and see as they keep tweaking it.

cheers Den.

My first visit and a very brief one as I spent a large portion of the afternoon stuck in traffic. Finally arrived at 4pm and just had time to rush around and pick up a variety of booklets on various holidays, buy a new tripod and bump into a friend. Hung around long enough afterwards to pick up my first Osprey of the year, but missed a flyover Red Kite and some Black Terns.

Definately going to do it properly next year and have enough time to chat with the folks at Butterfly Conservation, The BTO etc.