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The in’s
and out’s of Birding
- James Clarke
Birding has, in the last decade, become one of the educated
world’s fastest growing outdoor pursuits. No less
so than in South Africa where, in the last three years,
Birdlife South Africa (the old Ornithological Society)
has trained hundreds of African bird guides.
These are usually previously out-of-work people living
in the (black) "townships" outside mainly
white villages. It has enabled some guides to buy houses
in the villages for the tips can be anything up to R100
a time – especially if the guide has led a foreign
"twitcher" (an avid birder) to a "lifer"
(a bird species he or she has not seen before).
They charge R15 an hour, payable to Birdlife which
then pays the guide a salary.
From Cape Town to the Limpopo and from St Lucia to
Namibia, groups of friends, family groups and office
teams, annually take part in one of several competitive
"twitching" competitions held throughout the
summer. The objective is to see who can spot the most
birds in 24 hours – usually from midnight to midnight.
The beauty of twitching in Southern Africa is that
the region has no rival in the world for offering the
greatest variety of birds, the greatest variety of habitats
and the easiest and safest system for getting from one
region to another.
"Twitching" is a word coined about 15 years
ago by a birder in Britain who was watching a line-up
of serious English bird-watchers (or "birders"
as they are now called) waiting for a very rare bird
to show itself. He noticed they were twitching with
excitement.
Birder jargon has rapidly grown since then.
"Birding" (or bird-watching) is much more
relaxed than "twitching".
But serious birders, like computer buffs, are becoming
harder and harder to understand as they descend into
their own jargon.
Some time ago I spent a few hours twitching at a bird-filled
wetland 25km north of Velddrif on the West Coast and
puzzled my companion by using the birding term "lifer"
- "lifer" being a relatively new word at the
time. It has two meanings:
It can refer to a person who keeps a list of all the
birds he or she has positively identified before the
Lord mercifully plucks that lifer from society. I say
"mercifully" because some lifers can be awful
bores. Some will even fly - by plane mark you - thousands
of kilometres just to spot one particular species so
that they can place a tick next to its name. The world
record holder is into the 6000s (there are more than
8000 known species).
The other meaning describes a bird which a birder has
never seen before and which can now be added to his
or her "life list". I scored three lifers
at the pan.
Here a glossary of the new language:
Bins:
(n) binoculars
Binos:
(n. by-nose) binoculars
Bogey:
(n) an elusive bird which, although it is supposed to
be common, you, personally, just never seem to come
across.
Burn up:
(v) twitch or scour an area intensively in the hope
of seeing a record number of birds.
Clean up:
(v) to "bird an area" (ie: twitch) without
"dipping out" (see below).
Dip out:
(v) to stand there like a fool while everybody shouts
"but can't you see that flatfooted drongo, for
Pete's sake? Are you blind? Everybody can see it except
you! Here, let me show you once more... oh no! It's
gone!" (You have dipped out.)
Dross:
(n) a boring or very common bird like a mossie or a
topple (or even a narina trogon once everybody else
but you has seen it). An excellent way to alienate yourself
with a new and enthusiastic birder is to dismiss one
of his "lifers" as "dross".
Dude:
(n) birder who is not prepared to leopard-crawl through
thorn scrub or stand waist-deep in a bog in order to
pi (positively identify) a buffspotted flufftail. A
dude puts his bins back in the case each time he has
seen a bird. (Real birders do not have cases. If real
birders do have cases, they use them for brandy flasks
and sandwiches.)
Flatty: (n)
bird killed by car. Real birders will not tick these
off... well, not until they get home.
Flog:
(v) to really burn up.
Gardening:
(v) when a photographer re-arranges vegetation around
a nest so that the bird has an unadulterated view of
him.
Grip:
(v) to pi a bird.
Grip off: (v)
to claim to have seen a bird which nobody else saw.
Hoodwink:
(n) a rare bird ("rarey") which you fail to
pi.
ILBJ:
(n) "insignificant little brown job" which
evades pi.
Junk:
(n) same as dross.
LBJ: (n)
little brown job.
Lifelist:
(n) list of all the birds you have pi'd in your life.
Megatick: (n)
a really exciting rare bird.
Nockers:
(n) binoculars.
Nocks:
(n) binoculars.
Pi: (v)
positively identify.
Pishing:
see spishing.
Rarey: (n)
rara avis
Scope:
(v) to watch a bird through a telescope.
Spishing:
(v) to make a fruity, hissing noise with tongue rigid
across mouth and blowing through pursed lips. This sounds
like a general small-bird alarm call and attracts various
birds to your immediate vicinity.
Ticker:
(n) birder who just wants to tick off as many birds
as possible and is not interested in a bird once he
has it ticked.
Trash:
(v) to thoroughly work an area over.
Twitch:
(v) to see as many birds as possible in a given time.
Twitcher:
(n) an incurable birder.
Ultimate:
(n) more than a rarey or a megatick - something so rare
that it could cause an elderly birder to keel over and
die with a smile on his face.
Wreck:
(n) bird carcass on a beach.
Incidentally, the South African national 24-hour twitching
record is 276 and is held by the "Road Runners",
a team of four men in Zululand. Birders normally confine
themselves to trashing an area within 50sq km of a given
point.
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