Once a birder ........ When I went to see the American Bittern at Carlton Marshes a few years ago I was greeted by the words "I thought you were dead!" Not that unusual, since some of my age are, and birding friends and acquaintances, who are now sadly missed, grow in number almost daily. But I'm one of the lucky ones, and almost without exception people are still birders until the day they can physically not pick up a pair of bins. (or have sustained an injury, Pete Colston recently celebrated his 89th birthday indoors for that reason, but I'm sure he'll be back.) I recently travelled to Ghana, which is why I haven't posted a blog recently, and have decided to give up rainforest birding, since it was, for me, a hard trip involving long hours on often uphill trails, in heat and humidity I haven't experienced together before. I've been in hotter places, but not with 97% humidity! Wasn't helped by the fact that that my travelling compa...