Frog Day, Holland, September 1998.
This was my second visit to a Frog Day organised by Dendrobatidae Nederland, the first having been held in May of this year near Tilburg, a disappointing affair.  The September event was at Amstelveen, close to Amsterdam Schipol airport.  The venue was unusual in that it was the Greenhouse of a Garden Centre, Europatuin that had been closed to the general public for the morning.
Whilst there were considerably more frogs available than at the Tilburg event, the selection was unspectacular with large numbers of D. tricolor and  P. vittatus only available at low prices. There were a substantial number of P. bicolor at about £17 each for young frogs and D. azureus at about £22 each.  Smaller numbers of grey-legged tinctorius were also present at about £20 each. DD. auratus, ventrimaculatus, leucomelas and other forms of tinctorius were poorly represented, with available animals being sold very rapidly. Within a couple of hours very little was left except for tricolor and vittatus; hence the event closed.  This had been a long journey for such a short event, but nonetheless worthwhile. With my interest in plants, the Garden Centre was then 'toured' which only served to demonstrate how far ahead of us the Dutch are in this respect.  There were high-quality plants available at ridiculously low prices.
The return journey was punctuated with a visit to Avifauna, a bird zoo, at Alphen a/d Rhein.  This is a magnificent, huge project which I would recommend to anyone who is in that vicinity, even those with no prior interest in birds. 
Many thanks go to Clive Cummins for being our chauffeur for the day.
Derek Petrie