Purple pooperĭefinition: a less-than-endearing term for a Gray Catbird. Used in a sentence: If the warbler has a yellow blob above it’s tail, it must be a butterbutt. Butterbuttĭefinition: an endearing term for a Yellow-rumped Warbler. Used in a sentence: You could tell he was an exemplary SOB when he let her leap off the altar to pursue a Gyrfalcon.

SOB (spouse of birder)ĭefinition: a person who has had the misfortune of pledging their life to a birder. Used in a sentence: There’s no point in going birding after noon: It’ll be siesta time, and we’ll see nothing but crows and gulls. Siesta timeĭefinition: the height of the afternoon, when most birds tuck themselves out of view. Used in a sentence: “Why does this always happen to me?” Clayton wailed, after he dipped a Say’s Phoebe for the 14th time. Dippedĭefinition: to miss out on a high-priority bird. Used in a sentence: Islands as lush and remote as Gough Island play host to many endemic birds. Endemicĭefinition: inhabiting only a limited and insular region. Used in a sentence: The most pelagic birds are albatrosses, which spend years at sea, drinking salt water and sweating it out of their faces. Pelagicĭefinition: spending a vast amount of time living on the open ocean. Used in a sentence: If a flamingo showed up in New Zealand, it’d either be vagrant or a zoo escapee. Part of speech: adjective, sometimes a nounĭefinition: straying well outside of the regular ecological range.

Used in a sentence: After Regina tweeted about a Pink-footed Goose on Long Island, birders went into a frenzy, resulting in a Patagonia Picnic Table Effect and a rare Cassin’s Kingbird sighting. Patagonia Picnic Table Effectĭefinition: a phenomenon that occurs when one rare bird draws a bevy of birders to an area, resulting in more interesting species being discovered in the same locale.

Used in a sentence: When Maria pishes, none of the chickadees can resist. Pishĭefinition: a sound that birders make to try and draw songbirds out into the open. Used in a sentence: The Eastern Meadowlark looked like a ray of sunshine in a landscape filled with Fox Sparrows, wrens, and other LBJs. LBJs (little brown jobs)ĭefinition: a blanket term for drab songbirds that are difficult to distinguish. Used in a sentence: Frank frantically looked for a Hazel Hen during his yearlong stay in Estonia, but to no avail, making it his premier nemesis bird. Nemesis birdĭefinition: a species that constantly eludes a birder. Used in a sentence: For Tina, the handsome male frigatebird was her spark bird-once she spied it, she vowed to never put her binoculars down again. Spark birdĭefinition: a species that triggers a lifelong passion for birding. Used in a sentence: My Iranian cousins were in awe when they saw an American Robin during their visit to the States and declared it a lifer. Liferĭefinition: a first-time sighting for a birder. Used in a sentence: After being caught speeding, the twitchers tried to explain to the officer that they had traveled 900 miles to find the Brown Booby, before it skipped town. Twitcherĭefinition: a hard-core birder who goes to great lengths to see a species and add it to his or her list. Though slang varies from region to region, we’ve got you covered with a list of lingo that can be heard from coast to coast in the United States. Still, there’s a cache of eccentric phrases that are sometimes thrown about in the midst of camaraderie and battle. What the heck are they talking about, and what is the “Patagonia Picnic Table Effect”?īirders don’t have much of a stomach for jargon-after all, it’s more about birdsong than semantics. All of a sudden, people are referring to “vagrants,” “twitchers,” and the times they’d “dipped” an important sighting. You’ve just snagged a rare bird-an Amazon Kingfisher, let’s say-and now you’re out celebrating with some fellow birders.

Bird watcher name