Twitchers' vocabulary

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Some birdwatchers are keen rarity seekers and will travel long distances to see a new species to add to one of their "lists", e.g., life list, national list, state list, county list, etc. These fanatical birders are commonly known by the light-hearted slang term twitchers, particularly in the United Kingdom (though non-birders often mistakenly use twitcher as a synonym for birder or birdwatcher).

Comedian and celebrity birder Bill Oddie introduced many birdwatchers to the distinctive vocabulary that distinguishes twitchers from other categories of birdwatcher in his Little Black Bird Book (first published in 1980).

Some of these terms have been adopted by the North American birding community, but not all the terms are used due to dialectic and cultural differences.

[edit] Examples of twitchers' vocabulary

• To burn up or flog: To beat around in the undergrowth hoping to flush a bird. A desperate measure and not a kind way to treat an exhausted migrant.
• Mega: A very rare bird
• Crippler: A rare and spectacular bird that shows brilliantly, perhaps an allusion towards its preventing people from moving on.
• To dip out (or dip): To miss seeing a bird which you were looking for.
• Dude: A novice birdwatcher; slightly pejorative term. Also used to refer to someone who primarily seeks out birds for photography rather than study.
• First: A first record of a species (in a defined area, such as a county first).
• To grip off (or grip): To see a bird which another birder missed and to tell them you've seen it.
• Jizz: the overall impression given by the general shape, movement, behaviour, etc., of a species rather than any particular feature. Experienced birders can often identify species, even with only fleeting or distant views, on jizz alone.
• Lifer: A first-ever sighting of a bird species by an observer; an addition to one's life list.
• List:
  • Noun: a list of all species seen by a particular observer (often qualified, e.g. life list, county list, year list, etc.). Keen twitchers may keep several lists, and some listers compete to amass longer lists than their rivals.
  • Verb: to keep or compile a bird list (lister is close in meaning to twitcher).
• Sibe: A bird from Siberia (usually applied to rare migrants).
• String:
  • Noun: A dubious, "ropy" record.
  • Verb: to claim such a record.
• Tick: An addition to a personal list (sometimes qualified as year tick, county tick, etc.). Life tick and lifer are synonymous. A tart's tick is a relatively common species added to one's list later than might be expected.
• Yank: A bird from North America (usually applied to rare migrants).

Some species have nicknames: for example "RB Flicker" for Red-breasted Flycatcher, "Gropper" for Grasshopper Warbler, "PG Tips" for Pallas's Grasshopper Warbler and so on. Twitchers (and birders in general) will also use a mixture of scientific and slang terms for feather tracts and so on.