Please don't call me a twitcher ever again!

[Deb London]

Someone called me a twitcher the other day and it was said with sincerity. I'm not a twitcher so this made no sense. I also realised that I was offended by this remark. I won't go into why I think this and what I think a twitcher is. But I would hope that from my reaction this person never makes the same mistake again.

I wondered whether anyone here would actually use the term twitcher in a serious and inoffensive way. How would you feel if someone called you a twitcher?

The poll is anonymous.

[htcdude]

If someone called me a twitcher I wouldn't be too fussed, I'd just tell them I'm not I don't have the time to be!

I think most people don't actually understand what a twitcher really is, they think if you watch birds, you're a twitcher.

My mother-in-law calls me a tweeter

Nige

[artdemole]

Just an observer.I voted with the majority so far.

[Jason Green]

Originally Posted by htcdude

...they think if you watch birds, you're a twitcher.

Presactly.

[Wild-Woman]

To be honest Deb, it wouldn't really bother me that much because there are lots of people out there that don't know the difference. All they think is that it is someone who watches birds, full stop. It seems that the only time that birding of any kind is seen by the public is when a rarity has arrived and there's a lot of people coming to see it, so it's shown on TV etc.
There will be ardent 'twitchers', birders, occasional birders, locals that are curious and just people that stop to have a look to see what's going on. So, for people watching this on TV they've been programmed to think that they are all twitchers because that's the terminology the media nearly always uses. Can't really blame the general public. I would also say that most 'twitchers' do put the bird's welfare first and there's probably only a very small percentage that don't.

[KentYeti]

Originally Posted by Deb London

...........How would you feel if someone called you a twitcher?

I've been called so many things Deb, and still am being called them, that adding one more to the list makes not a shred of difference to me.

What was it we used to chant at primary school:-

"Sticks and Stones may hurt my bones, but names can never hurt me".

Maybe seems a silly chant, but maybe also it was part of our up bringing to condition us to mischevious and even quite innocently wrong encounters such as this in later life.

Cantium - call me whatever you want - Gigantanthropus

aka Bryan! LOL

[RoyW]

I was torn between "neither pleased nor displeased" and "something else entirely", but decided that the former was appropriate.
When I am called a twitcher, I usually respond by explaining exactly what a twitcher is, which is what I did when I was at Canvey seafront recently with a few others. After being asked what we were looking for, and replying that
we were looking for seabirds that had come into the mouth of the Thames to escape the windy conditions the response was "So you're twitchers then." I explained that birdwatchers were not all twitchers, and that twitcher would only come if other birders/birdwatchers had already found something rare.

Its not really that easy to 'classify' birdwatchers under any of the many names though - most regular birdwatchers will "twitch" a bird at some point. If you visit a site specifically with the hope of seeing a species that you have heard has been seen there then you are "twitching" (unless it is a species that is so regular at the site that you could plan the visit months, perhaps even years, in advance and still have a good chance of sucess). Travelling one mile to a London reservoir because you are told that an Osprey has been seen there is twitching (but travelling all the way to Rutland Water, or even Loch Garten to see the Osprey breeding there is not!).

As has been said, the problem is that the press have heard the term and think that twitcher is just another term for birdwatcher - if sports journalists did something similar and called all footballers "strikers" they wouldn't hear the last of it!

[Shrike]

Hi Deb , just wondered what it is that offends you ? is it the name Twitcher or the association with the Twitcher clan. I also have always been called a Twitcher by people who find out i'm a birdwatcher and this is normally accompanied by an oh so very amusing impersonation of somebody physically twitching

[Kayleigh]

Its like being called an anorak or train spotter it has a certain stigma about it..
TBH I said I didn't care as I am not one, I like birds but I don't go looking for rare ones that turn up on our shores and I don't really know one end from the other..
The media portrayed birders as some weirdos who travel the length and breadth of the country just to get a tick in book yes some do this but its not everyone who takes an interest in birds is it.

[RoyW]

Originally Posted by Kayleigh

Its like being called an anorak or train spotter it has a certain stigma about it.

So does being open about being a birdwatcher of any description as far as a large proportion of the general public are concerned.

Originally Posted by Kayleigh

...and I don't really know one end from the other.

You only had to ask and we could have helped you with that bit - the front end is the one with the beak!

Originally Posted by Kayleigh

...The media portrayed birders as some weirdos who travel the length and breadth of the country just to get a tick in book

Now that describes 'hardened' twitchers.
Birders (like me) are far less obsessive and more balanced individuals - even if they twitch from time to time!

From what I can see, the release of the film "The Big Year" (apparently now due for UK release on March 23rd) is not going to do the street cred of any brdwatchers any good.