Please don't call me a twitcher ever again!

[healfdan]

I have been a life long naturalist. When I go out with my binos looking for birds I have heard people refer to me as a twitcher. When I am plodding around in the grassland with a butterfly net I have heard the expression anorak. When I know the answer to a question involving wildlife I am called a nerd. Help needed on what I am called when I carry out research on mammals. Please keep it clean.

[Meta menardi]

Originally Posted by healfdan

I have been a life long naturalist. When I go out with my binos looking for birds I have heard people refer to me as a twitcher. When I am plodding around in the grassland with a butterfly net I have heard the expression anorak. When I know the answer to a question involving wildlife I am called a nerd. Help needed on what I am called when I carry out research on mammals. Please keep it clean.

And, as my daughter found when searching bushes in a local park for spiders, you can also attract the attention of the local police as a person dealing in drugs. Smiley in retrospect, but it does make you quite twitchy... and that completes the circle.

[RoyW]

Originally Posted by Meta menardi

And, as my daughter found when searching bushes in a local park for spiders, you can also attract the attention of the local police as a person dealing in drugs. Smiley in retrospect, but it does make you quite twitchy... and that completes the circle.

A couple of local birders that I know had a visit from the police when they were taking a look at a local, north London reservoir which has no public access, but is overlooked by the grassy slopes of a park on a nearby hill.

Apparently someone though that a couple of 'peeping Toms' were likely to set themselves up with telescopes in full view of all passers by to look into peoples windows!
It seems that the police who attended were quite interested in seeing the birds on the reservoir through their 'scopes!


PS. I'm very surprised that so many people would apparently take offence at being called a twitcher (I thought that it was a well known misconception that 'the public' now thing that twitcher = birdwatcher of any description - and besides, if you actually know any twitchers, the vast majority are well balanced, helpful, and put the birds interests first.).

[Deb London]

As I quoted above, one of the men that first coined the word now admits it has become a derogatory term. If you understand this, then it's not too inconceivable that you might not be too pleased to be called one. Of course, it all depends on who calls you one, how clued-up they are, how they say it etc.

My vote was "quite insulted". I'm not overly bothered, but did have to stop what I was doing, turn round and explain that this term was inappropriate. I wanted to know if other people would have been bothered. Generally it seems that most people wouldn't have been too insulted. But I suspect that few people here would call someone a twitcher in polite conversation, and that many people do believe that it's not a good word to use.

I enjoyed reading caernerch's reply. Understanding how the misconception may have arisen is helpful.

[Wild-Woman]

Seems to me that someone who doesn't understand something is usually the one to make a name up for it, with derogatory undertones. It's ignorance.

[RoyW]

To be honest I don't think that 'twitcher' is generally considered anywhere near as derogatory as many seem to think. The general public just think that it is a term that means a keen birdwatcher, and experienced birders know that a very large number of their peers will be twitchers (at least on occasion). The term is only used in a derogatory way by those who think that twitchers all deliberately flush birds, always cause damage to sites they visit, have no respect for anyone else, and may not even know what they are looking at (all of these are true for only a small minority of twitchers).

If you are called a name by someone who actually knows what a twitcher is then 'dude' is more of an insult - and if they don't know what the name really means then don't worry about it.

[Deb London]

What about hobby snobbery and intolerance? If I go birdwatching in my lunch hour I won't bother telling colleagues. I wouldn't like their reaction. I can't be bothered with narrow-minded people.

Birdwatching can be seen as nerdy, even slightly creepy. If you are in full view of the public, and there is any suspicion as to what you are looking at, if there is a building, a house, a school, even a park or playing field in the general area you are viewing, you might well be viewed with a suspicious eye. You might enjoy your hobby on your own, and you might be doing it quietly and looking around you all the time. How does that look to other people?

I once followed a man who was acting suspiciously and was on private land (he went through the gap in the hedge that "only I knew about"). Until my monocular picked out his binocular. Then I was OK with it! But I am one of the ones who understand. I'm not sure many would, including the owners of the land.

And the general public are not at all tolerant of women birdwatching in full view, or so I have been told by a lady who was a birder of many years experience. Lorry drivers and blonde-haired ladies peering over roadside hedges with their bins out really don't mix. A real target for victimization if ever there was one.

Even if the public don't quite understand the term twitching, they do have a general idea that it is a something more than a casual birdwatcher. So if there is an element of intolerance for the "uncool" hobby that birdwatching is, and I believe that there sometimes is, what does someone really mean when they call you "twitcher"? Even if the mistaken member of the public has got their birding vocabulary confused? Are you really sure that being called this in public is not slightly derogatory?

Not that that stops me from doing anything. When I found my Whinchat the other day, a bird that no one had reported in the area, I was thrilled and I'm not sure there is a feeling like it.

[Adam Cheeseman]

"Twitchers: a very British obsession"

I found this a rather amusing title 'cos if the researchers had done their work properly the would have realised that at the very least the American and Dutch birders are just as passionate about their hobby. I've known Dutch birders visit neighbouring countries to see birds. e.g. the Brown Shrike on Staines Moor.

Cheers,

Adam

[htcdude]

Originally Posted by Adam Cheeseman

Dutch birders visit neighbouring countries to see birds. e.g. the Brown Shrike on Staines Moor.

Cheers,

Adam

Yes a couple of Dutch came, and I heard someone from Thailand came over for it??

Nige

[RoyW]

The general public may see 'twitchers' as something more than just 'birdwatchers' but I don't think they do (typical newspaper headlines at the time of the annual RSPB garden bird survey pretty much always describe the participants as twitchers).
When those who don't understand the term do use it in a derogatory manor it is not the specific term that is derogatory, it is the activity that they are seeing as worthy of distain - they would use the terms 'birdwatcher', 'bird enthusiast', or anything else they felt meant the same as twitcher in exactly the same derogatory way.