Twitcher Talk | Kern Audubon-Tehachapi

Twitcher Talk

Written by Clark Moore

From time to time we have used British birding terms such as twitcher, binos, or jizz in this column. Eric Salzman, the book review editor for Birding (the bi-monthly magazine of the American Birding Association), recently pulled together a partial glossary of British birding lexicon.

As Salzman writes, after an outing with a group of British birders, a North American birder may come away having not understood a word said all day. Or, as Winston Churchill once said (or was it George Bernard Shaw), “We are two nations separated by a common language.” In this column we liberally borrow from Salzman’s piece.

“Seen any good birds?” Jean and I, as do the British, dislike the phrase. After all, what is a good bird? Aren’t they all! Well, maybe not all. Rather, over-there they ask, “Anything about?” Or, “Much about?” The term for binoculars is Binos or bins (also commonly used over-here). In Britain you may also hear optics referred to as nockies.

Gubbed out, or knackered, means too many birds seen (or not seen), or, too much high-powered birding in a short period. Blocker is a bird you have been trying to see without any luck. If it is finally seen it is then unblocked. Certs are those vagrants most likely to be seen. That is, the regular irregulars. To dip out is a miss (a bird not found).

Phase is one who has given up birding or phased. Young males often phase when they marry. To dephase is to return to birding. To grip off means to see a rarity that no one else saw. To be gripped off is to have not seen a bird everybody else saw. A Krippler is a rarity so stunning it can be krippling. A stonker (also a term in bridge?) is a krippler among kripplers.

A patch or patch worker is usually one’s home birding territory. Backyard birding is our equivalent. A British blind is a hide. Ringing is their term for banding a bird (a ring instead of band). Score is to have a bird! Showing well – a bird easy to see. An easy to see rare bird that hangs around and makes itself easily available is a tart.

Flog is to look thoroughly or to extensively search an area. Grill is to absorb every detail of a bird. Bad information is duff. Dude is a non-birder (or rank beginner). An off course Siberian bird is a sibe.Waders is British for shorebirds, not long rubber boots.

The root of the word jizz is in some dispute. It has been said the term is derived from one system of identifying warplanes during World War II and being an acronym for “Generalized Impression of Size and Shape”, or GISS, hence JIZZ. However, there is evidence that the word predates the war by a decade or more.

Salzman quotes Mark Cocker as defining the term jizz as, “identifying birds by an almost artistic, intuitive grasp of the bird’s indefinable essence.” Non-birders (dudes) are sometimes startled how quickly an experienced birder will call out, for example, “Scrub Jay” and how often this is a correct call.

Birders respond to the general size, shape, posture, that is, the bird’s jizz. I am reminded of years ago in Dr. Hallman’s philosophy classes and our lengthy discussions of ness-ness. That is, “tableness”, “chairness”, “treeness.” In retrospect what made a table a table should have been easy, the general impression of size and shape – jizz! Scrubjayness?

Jizz is that first impression of a bird, while feather birding is the analytical, forensic method applied to birding in this day of Sibley, Dunne, Kaufmann, and others. Grilling or feather birding is the opposite of jizz. That is, the methodology of close examination, feather-by-feather, feature-by-feature (the topology), of the bird.

Over-here a birder who keeps a life list, a state list, a county list, or whatever list, may be referred to as a lister. When heard on the “hot line” that a rare Siberian shorebird (siberwader) has been seen along the beaches of Ventura County the lister is on the way hoping to add to their life, state and county list.

Over-there, the term is twitcher. It is said that birders would race off into the cold, damp fog on their motor scooters headed for the area where the bird was reported. Arriving at the reported venue, chilled through and through, bordering on hypothermia, they would be shivering, that is, twitching. Thus, they were referred to as twitchers.

Here are the terms. To twitch, or, a twitch, a twitcher, twitching, to be twitchable and a tick. To twitch is the act of chasing a rare bird, or it can be the rare bird itself (a twitch). A twitcher is a birder who chases rare birds (the twitch). Twitching is what a twitcher (act of) does. A twitch (a rare bird) that lingers long enough to be twitchable (twitched) is a long stayer, and when twitched, becomes a tick.

Therefore, a long stayer is a twitch that can be twitched by twitchers and is said to have been twitchable. A successful twitching or twitch, is, or calls for, a tick. Got that twitcher talk – dude?

After writing this column, the ABA journal Birding received a number of “Letters to the Editor” correspondence concerning some of the terms referenced. It several cases it was denied that some terms were still in use. Others redefined the meaning of a word or two. However, they are so much fun, we are leaving the definitions and meanings as written.

I would think that most readers, dudes and birders alike, will figure out this one last term – yank. Right? Well, a yank is a vagrant, avian or otherwise, from the American Birding Association listing area (North America) – that is, over-there from over-here. Good twitching, gone twitching for a tart or two to tick – yank.