Backyard Birds

What is a Twitcher?

 

This term, most often used in the UK, is said to have originated from seeing birders arrive to see a rare bird and start physically shaking from the hype [or still shivering having driven 200 miles on the back of a motorbike in mid winter]. Now in general use by the media for someone simply interested in birds. In reality, however, it is an obsessive list-keeping birder who goes after rare birds found by other people. Twitchers might cross half the country overnight to see one tatty brown thing sitting half a mile away on a bleak expanse of mud. Twitchers invariably have huge lists that only impress other twitchers. Some are excellent birders in the field, and well-read, as birding is their life, their raison-d'etre. Conversely, some are not good at identifying birds, because they leave all that tedious business to others.

 

From the noun twitcher you also get the verb to twitch, which is to go out with the deliberate intent of seeing one particular rarity you`ve been told about, and you don't need to be a dedicated twitcher to do this.

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Twitcher's Moll – a twitcher's girlfriend; seen normally following along, often with no interest in birds and looking very bored, she can't join in with the conversation (because she can't understand a word being said).