Well I did find something to do with that leave for sure! Ended up on Vancouver Island again after my dad kindly pointed out that this would have been the 4th period of leave without going anywhere, so I managed to book enough to survive in Canada in the 4hrs before the flight departed. Lol if I could plan in advance I'd be dangerous.

Anyway so I got there, grabbed a load of booklets and ended up taking a hire car over to Vancouver Island to see some great friends. It is a stunning place and I can only recommend it if you've not been. The trip was barely over a week but much was done during the time including finding out how BAD Denny's restaurants are in Canada (urgh), gliding in Port Alberni (stunning in Summer), watching eagles and ospreys, a day of falconry at Pacific Northwest Raptors, walking along a number of nice beaches, gift shopping and sight seeing.

For the record... when I went there in April there were Countless bald eagles, a good number of turkey vultures and (that I saw) a single osprey. I remember seeing a bald eagle sitting on a lamp post at Vancouver airport. In Summer there were more turkey vultures, quite a few ospreys at the beaches (they were probably always there) ... but bald eagles were *really* hard to find. I guess at least some had moved for the summer, but I saw 3 in the whole trip as opposed to almost hourly in April. The ones I did see were while gliding, and they were over the tops of the peaks where it was cooler. It was almost sickeningly humid at ground level so I can't blame them. A more realistic proposition is that during the Winter/Spring, when times are harder, they come closer to people to scavenge on road kill, carrion and linger around fishing villages (lots there ... Ucluelet for example). In Summer, generally a time of bounty, they simply don't have to come near us so they don't. You really have to get Out There to find them. The only one I saw while not in a glider was on a beach that took 2 1/2 hours to reach, and there were only 3 people on it including myself and it was pretty big. Other birds I saw this time around were redtailed hawks and northern harriers.

Anyway I'm no behaviorologist (I could only spell it with Google ) so I'd welcome any local knowledge to educate an Englander.

I'm Back in England now and it sucks. Within 10 minutes of entering Terminal 5 I was reminded of 'how England is' by an airport staff worker treating a tourist with utter misery, rudeness and total lack of etiquette when they asked for directions for flight transfers (since the whole floor was a building site and there were 'diversion' signs everywhere ... it was unclear for me and I'm From England and I was just looking for passport control). *sigh*

The biggest surprise was finding out that I'm off to Athens on Thursday for 11 days of work based out there. Strong winds and wild fires. Hurrah! I can't say that the hotel looks great either, and I *@HATE@* greek food (sorry to any Greek readers lol). I cannot stress how much I starved myself unwillingly on a holiday to Crete a number of years ago... Anyway apart from all that, Greece has some stunning history and landscape so it should be an interesting trip if I can get away from the work bit.

I mentioned wild fires ... there were so many warnings on Vancouver Island and an outright campfire ban. I didn't see any myself, but there was evidence of the damage caused. Even on the flight back there were Huge plumes of smoke coming out of the Coastal and Rocky mountains. I mean this is Canada ... the odd fire sure, but like this?

Anyway that's enough for now. Just looking through the pictures to see if any are DA worthy...

Thanks for reading!

Graeme