A Brit abroad

Birdspeak

Inspired by Vicky, a bemused non-birder who occasionally visits my blog, I've compiled a short glossary of birding slang. If you can think of any more, feel free to post comments!

Armchair tick - when a taxonomic committee decides to split a species into two or more new species, your list automatically increases without having to leave the comfort of your own home!

Big Day/Birdathon/Birdrace - Attempting to see as many birds as possible in a given region within 24 hours. Exhausting but fun!

Blocker - a mythically rare bird that only the fortunate few are lucky enough to have seen, but may well not show up again in your lifetime. Examples of this would be Black Lark in the UK (Nick!), or Eskimo Curlew anywhere. When a mega-rarity shows up after an absence of several years, it is said to unblock.

Crippling views - a bird that shows fantastically well. Birds I've recently had crippling views of include California Condor and Scissor-tailed Flycatcher.

Digiscoping/digibinning - holding a digital camera up to the lens of a telescope or binoculars to create a makeshift zoom lens. The raison d'etre of this blog. I've even heard of phone-scoping (using a camera phone in conjunction with a scope)!

Dip - the act of chasing a rare bird and missing it, often by a matter of seconds (e.g. Red-rumped Swallow at the Ouse Washes - Nick!). I think the US equivalent is to get skunked. We've all been there and it's not nice!

Dude - a derogatory term for the sort of person who, in spite of having state of the art optical equipment, is a pretty hopeless birder.

Gripper - if one of your friends gets crippling views of a bird that you'd love to see (and haven't), you have been gripped off. The offending bird, especially if photographed well, is a gripper. Nick, a British birder based in Shanghai, is continually gripping me off - the photo below shows his footprint next to that of a Steller's Sea Eagle!

Listing - the all-consuming task of trying to see as many birds as possible within a given time frame (day, year, life) or geographical region (garden, county, country). Amusing lists kept by friends include a toilet list and a nuts list!

Mega - a bird so rare you drop everything to go and see it.

Purple patch - any patch of land which is blessed with repeated sightings of rare or vagrant birds.

String - the act of misidentifying a common bird as something rarer. Something that we all do from time to time. A stringer is a birder who strings with great frequency. A friend of mine (who shall remain nameless - you know who you are!) once managed to turn a Corn Bunting into a Red-footed Falcon!

Suppress - to withhold news of a rare bird from the public domain. Often this is done to protect sensitive breeding species, or because the bird cannot be viewed from public land. Sometimes, however, news of a good bird is tactically suppressed by competitive listers to deliberately prevent other birders from seeing it: hence the title of suppressor is perhaps the most damning curse to be labelled with.

Tart's tick - a bird that's so easy to see/identify that even a woman could see it. A relic from the male-dominated UK birding scene, use this phrase at your peril!

Twitcher - a birder who drops everything to drive (or even fly) thousands of miles to chase rare birds reported to their phone/pager/email. Something most of us are guilty of from time to time! A bird is considered twitchable if it stays at a reasonably accessible site for at least a few hours.

Warbler neck - I discovered the meaning of this US phrase this spring. It describes the horrible neck cramps you get after staring for hours into the treetops trying to identify American Warblers.

Posted by rjhall at May 19, 2004 6:37 PM