I'm currently in the Hortobagy National Park in Hungary, and spent yesterday in a drinking pool hide. I'm not a fan of hides but there is no denying that they give you some great photo opps - 33 degrees, mossies galore, but heaps of birds coming in to drink. Some difficult shutter speeds, it can be very dark underneath the canopy, and shooting through special glass probably costs somewhere between one and two stops, but I'm reasonably pleased with some of these. For the technical amongst you, shutter speeds topped out at around 1/500s for a brief period, but were more commonly 1/200s. Action, forget about it! Early morning, when the light was arguably nicest, and I was working with 1/60s and really struggling. Other species visiting the hide included Syrian and Green Woodpeckers, Song Thrush, Blackbird, Great Tit, Blue Tit, Yellowhammer, Spotted and Collared Flycatchers, and Turtle Dove.