OK - so i have figured it out. For all those who are interested, once you have grabbed the Ajax.Net object using $find(), you can simply subscribe to events using the "add_..." methods. Just examine which of these are available using a javascript debugger such as firebug.
E.G. If i want to perform an action when the Ajax.Net toolkit drops down, i can simply do the following:
function pageLoad() {
var bhvDdl = $find("bhvDdl");
//register
bhvDdl .add_showing(showing);
}
function showing(){
alert("showing");
}
Si!