Navtej Kohli’s useful birdwatching terminology
Monday, April 28th, 2008Navtej Kohli is an avid birder. Below are some useful birding slang complied by Navtej Kohli for those who have just started to gain their birding wings.
Bird watching as a hobby is taking a flight amid nature lovers. Avid birders are acquainted with the intricate terminology of bird watching, better known as birding slang, but beginners usually get confused on hearing these unfamiliar words. So, if you are about to take bird watching as a hobby, you must at least know some basic terms and their meanings:
1. Tick: any species that you spot should wind up on your birding list, and those species that you have never seen before will wind up on your “tick list.” There are various types of tick lists ranging from “garden ticks” to “trip ticks,” but the idea here is to note anything new.
2. Lifer: if you spot a lifer, you are truly blessed. A “lifer” is a bird that you have never laid eyes on before. Lifers cannot include birds that you have seen while traveling, and they must be birds that you never thought you would lay eyes upon.
3. Sibe: a “sibe” is a bird that usually resides in Siberia, but during a flight this type of bird became lost and wound up near your home. The interesting thing is that sibes usually go unnoticed, since these birds are usually rather plain to look at.
4. BOP: a BOP is easily identifiable as a “bird of prey,” but many people hardly notice them at all when they are soaring hundreds of feet in the air. Birds of prey are truly magnificent animals, so keep your eyes towards the sky for your next BOP sighting.
5. Seawatching: this type of birding really takes a lot of patience. Seawatching is, exactly, as it sounds - watching for birds while sitting near the sea. Seawatchers spend hours perched upon a rocky cliff in order to spot rare birds, and most of the time seawatchers usually wind up spend the day alongside a seagull or two.
However, you don’t need to learn these terms by heart, but it’s just that you should know some most common words. Though the words mentioned above are some of the more common terms, there are literally hundreds of other bird watching terms out there, so don’t worry about memorizing all of them. As with any other sport, birders are rather proud of their exclusive world, so it only makes sense that there are numerous words to go along with the many magnificent birds that exist on the planet.
