Twitchers' vocabulary is the set of jargon words used by twitchers. Some terms may be specific to regional birding communities, and not all are used due to dialectic and cultural differences.
Terms
Big Day: a birding event in which a birder or team of birders tries to see as many species of birds as possible within a calendar day.
Big Year: a birding event in which a birder tries to see as many species of birds as possible within a defined area within a calendar year; originated with the American Birding Association, and the basis for the movie The Big Year.
To burn out: To bird to the point of no longer wanting to continue birding/twitching.
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.
BVD: "Better View Desired", describing a lifer that was observed well enough to identify, but not enjoy.
CFW : An abbreviation that stands for “Confusing Fall Warbler”.
Chooks : already seen or common birds.
CMF: a Cosmic Mind F***, an exceptionally good bird, at least at the level or even greater than a Crippler.
Crippler : a rare and spectacular bird that shows brilliantly, perhaps an allusion towards its preventing people from moving on.
Crush : to get very high-quality photos of a bird, often referred to as a banger. See hammer
Dip : to miss seeing a bird which you were looking for.
Dude: "a bird-watcher who doesn't really know all that much about birds." A novice birdwatcher; slightly pejorative term. Also used to refer to someone who primarily seeks out birds for photography rather than study.
Empid : any of the flycatchers of the genus Empidonax, infamous among North American birders for being difficult to identify in the field without the aid of vocalizations.
Fallout: a natural occurrence where migratory birds are forced down by adverse weather in a way that makes them congregate in large numbers; generally associated with meteorological and geographical conditions.
First: a first record of a species.
Grip : to see a bird which another birder missed and to tell them you've seen it.
Hammer : to get high-quality photos of a bird.
Jizz or giss: 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.
LBJ : drab songbirds that are difficult to differentiate and identify.
LC : the action of reporting vagrants suspiciously often, generally without photos or audio. As in: “Did you see that LC of an Ancient Murrelet? They couldn’t make it more obvious that they didn’t actually see a murrelet, but were instead just trying to increase their Sonoma County list.”
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. Keen twitchers may keep several lists, and some listers compete to amass longer lists than their rivals.
Nemesis : a bird that has eluded a birder despite multiple attempts to see it.
NFC: Stands for Nocturnal Flight Count: To conduct a survey of birds migrating at night by listening for their flight calls, often with a specialized microphone.
Patagonia Picnic Table Effect : the phenomenon that occurs when one bird draws many birders to a remote area, who then find more rarities and other interesting species in that same location. Named after an actual roadside rest area just west of Patagonia, Arizona.
Patch : a birding location or set of birding locations near one's home that a birder visits frequently.
Pelagic : a boat trip designed for birders to find open-ocean species, such as albatrosses.
Pish : an emphatic shushing or hissing noise used by North American birders to elicit mobbing behavior; made in imitation of alarm calls of chickadees and titmice.
Siesta time : the period in mid-afternoon when birds are least active.
Slash: a cryptic species pair, e.g. long-billed dowitcher/short-billed dowitcher, willow flycatcher/alder flycatcher
SOB: "Spouse of Birder", a non-birder spouse.
Spark bird: a species that triggers a lifelong obsession with birding.
Spuh: birds that are only identifiable to genus level .
String :
*Noun: a dubious, "ropy" record.
*Adjective: Stringy
*Verb: to claim such a record.
** Note: the term stringer usually denotes people who intentionally mislead and falsify bird sightings, as opposed to well-intentioned mistakes made from lack of field experience.
Tick: an addition to a personal list. 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. An armchair tick is an addition without leaving one's home, typically as a result of a taxonomic change.
To pull an Easterla : to find a ridiculously rare vagrant in a place with no vagrant potential whatsoever. As in: "A first state record of Yellow-browed Warbler in Alpine County? How did a Sibe end up 160 miles inland alongside a mountain stream?! And how was it even found?!?"
Twitch: the act of traveling a long distance to see a rare bird. Synonymous with chase.
Vagrant: a stray far from normal ecological range.
Warbler Neck : a painful crick in the neck from looking at birds high in the treetops. Named after the New World warblers, which are often found in the tops of trees.
Some species have nicknames, for example: "RB Flicker" for Red-breasted Flycatcher, "Gropper" for Grasshopper Warbler, "PG Tips" for Pallas's Grasshopper Warbler; in the US, these are generally reserved for common species. Every bird found in the US has a formal four-letter banding code formed with the first letters of its name, and these abbreviated species terms often find their way into American slang. Twitchers will also use a mixture of scientific and slang terms for feather tracts and so on.
