[Wildlifewriter]

It's a slow month for birdwatching. At this time of year, the days are short; full Spring migration hasn't yet got underway; wildfowl have thinned out or dispersed - not much is happening.

The best things for a keen watcher to watch, are the other watchers...

The popular image of a birder is immutable: a tousled, scruffy individual, wearing odd outdoor clothing of dubious cleanliness, hung about with strange gadgets and sporting ridiculous headgear. And there's a very good reason for this public perception – birders DO look like that. OK, beards may not be de rigeur these days (though there are still plenty to be seen) and perceptible body odour is less popular than it once was – but in general, Bill Oddie as archetype still works.

Like geocachers, birders have their own language – a rich patois of jargon which sets us apart even without bobble hats. Having missed out on seeing a particular rarity, I've dipped out or even been gripped off by someone who HAS seen it earlier. Spotting (and correctly identifying) a bird which I've never seen before, I'll refer to it as a lifer or even a megatick.

Not content with this, birders assign slang names to the birds themselves. A Barwit for Bar-Tailed Godwit is obvious enough, as is Icky for Icterine Warbler – but it gets worse after that: Arctic and Common terns are difficult to differentiate at a distance, so birders just call them Commics which neatly solves the problem.

On entering a hide or observation area, the standard polite greeting among enthusiasts is “Annabout?”. This means “Have you seen any rare or unusual birds from here today and, if so, where are they?” Since birders are not naturally talkative (except in pubs) the answer will normally be “Nurrr” (if nothing interesting is about) or – if there is – the newcomer will be handed a scrap of paper with some illegible scrawl on it.

There's a reason for this reticence: by definition, identifying rare or vagrant birds is difficult, and getting it wrong in public is the worst humiliation a birder can face. If done repeatedly, he (or she) may be saddled with the reputation of being a stringer – one who gives false alarms or behaves in a generally disreputable manner.

Since no-one wants to be called a stringer, conversation is kept to a minimum and any identifications wait on the possible arrival of a Guru. The Gurus are birdwatching super-beings, who can pick out the single Temminks Stint in a flock of Dunlin – at 300 metres , in a rainstorm and without binoculars. “Aha!!” the Guru will say after scanning the gulls at a local landfill site, “First-winter juvenile Glaucous – just beside the old fridge over there. Tricky one, that...” The fact is that immature brown-and-white seagulls all look much the same, but nobody dares argue.

Stringers are always with us, but Dudes come and go. They're still uncommon in Scotland and Ireland, but are on the increase in England & Wales. Identifying a dude birder is quite easy, as they have the following distinguishing features: (a) spotless clothing, Gore-tex throughout and all bought at either Graham Tiso or Selfridges. (b) State-of-the-art binoculars, cameras, and other optics – none of which is scratched, dented or otherwise bashed about. (c) A four-wheel-drive vehicle.

Real birders don't drive 4x4s. We can't afford them. Real birders own scrape-through-the-MOT hatchbacks, which would be blue in colour if they were ever washed. Real birders have Caledonian McBrayne ferry stickers on their rear bumpers.

The most famous category of birdwatchers is – of course - Twitchers.

It's often held that twitchers are on the extremist fringe of the hobby, (rather like “numbers men” in geocaching) and are capable of any lunacy in pursuit of an extra tick on the log book. Admittedly, some birders DO foresake their own beds for reedbeds at five in the morning, or are seen tumbling over barbed-wire fences while warning shots and cries of “Gerroff moi laaand!” ring out behind them.

But in fact “twitcher” is just another one of those irregular nouns: I am a birder. YOU are a twitcher. HE is a stringer dude, with a Barbour jacket and five field guides in the glovebox of his Range Rover.

It's all matter of perspective.

-Wlw

[Billy Twigger]

Excellent!
A brilliant observation in the opposite direction!
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Let's face the music and dance