Dictionary of Birding terms

To burn up or flog: To beat around in the undergrowth hoping to flush a bird. A desperate measure and not a kind way to treat an exhausted migrant.
Mega: A very rare bird
Crippler: A rare and spectacular bird that shows brilliantly, perhaps an allusion towards its preventing people from moving on.
To dip out (or dip): To miss seeing a bird which you were looking for.
Dude: A casual birder who prefers pleasant surroundings and nice weather. Usually satisfied with quite common birds that would drive a twitcher insane with boredom. Dudes tend not to be too hot on identification either, but on the plus side they keenly enjoy the birds they do see and not just as ticks on a list. Nothing to be ashamed of. (However, there are some irritating dudes who think they know far more than they do and run up lots of stringy records (see 'stringy')).
First: A first record of a species (in a defined area, such as a county first).
Grip someone off: If you dip out on a bird and someone else doesn't, then he or she has gripped you off. This usually happens through the vagaries of chance (you turned up too late, went to the wrong turnip field, whatever) but the intense rivalry of twitchers can lead to them intentionally gripping each other off, through deliberate misinformation, suppression of information, or even scaring the bird away before anyone else can see it. Petty, maybe, but it has been known to happen. (Though knowledge of some rarities is suppressed for more practical reasons, such as to keep armies of twitchers away from private land or the breeding sites of vulnerable species.)
Jizz: the overall impression given by the general shape, movement, behaviour, etc., of a species rather than any particular feature. Experienced birders can often identify species, even with only fleeting or distant views, on jizz alone.
LBJ : a Little Brown Job. An amazing number of birds are small and brown or some other unexciting colour, even in sum plum, and they all look almost exactly like at least a dozen other species. Female or immature birds are quite likely to be LBJs, and identification can be tricky even for the experts.
Lifer: A first-ever sighting of a bird species by an observer; an addition to one's life list.
List:
- Noun: a list of all species seen by a particular observer (often qualified, e.g. life list, county list, year list, etc.). Keen twitchers may keep several lists, and some listers compete to amass longer lists than their rivals.
- Verb: to keep or compile a bird list (lister is close in meaning to twitcher).
Megatick - an extremely good tick, by virtue of the bird being rare and probably either very colourful or awesomely huge to boot. A good tick not just for you, but for any birder, even the most jaded of veterans.
Peep: A small shorebird, often applied to Sandpipers.
Plastic: Adjective used to describe a bird that has escaped from captivity.
Seawatching: Sitting for hours and hours on a windswept cliff top, beach or harbour wall, eyes glued to the sea in the hope that something interesting will fly by eventually. Usually tedious beyond description, but the only way to see some of the more ocean-bound species away from their inaccessible breeding grounds. It helps to have a good telescope, since the birds might be miles away (literally, sometimes), and someone to talk to is a good idea unless you really want to go mad. The only rule of thumb with seawatching is that it only stands to be worthwhile if the weather is truly foul (but foul weather doesn't necessarily mean productive seawatching). Strictly for the dedicated.
Sibe: A bird from Siberia (usually applied to rare migrants).
Sprawk: Slang for Sparrowhawk
String:
- Noun: A dubious, "ropy" record.
- Verb: to claim such a record.
Sum plum: summer plumage. A lot of rare (and not-so-rare) birds are only likely to be seen in Britain on their autumn migration, by which time they're normally in their dowdy winter plumage, so getting one in sum plum is a bonus.
Tart's tick: A species that should be on every serious twitcher's list because at least one bird has been easily "available" in the past.
Tick: An addition to a personal list (sometimes qualified as year tick, county tick, etc.). Life tick and lifer are synonymous. A tart's tick is a relatively common species added to one's list later than might be expected.
Twitcher : 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. Surprisingly, they are not always good at identifying birds, because they leave all that tedious business to other birders. From twitcher you also get the verb to twitch, 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.
Two-bird theory: A face-saving device. You see a bird and identify it as something rare. Someone else twitches it and re-identifies it as something very similar, but common. Rather than admit you got it wrong, you resolutely maintain you were right and that there were actually two birds present: the rare one and the common one.
Vis mig: Visible migration. Most birds migrate to some extent, and it's one of the most attractive things about birding that almost anything can turn up almost anywhere. Migrants are often found after they've pitched down overnight, but you can also see them actually on the move. There's something rather exciting about this overtly purposeful movement, even when the birds in question are really quite common. It's not every day you see a woodpecker bounding over the waves or a big BOP (qv) flapping over the local shopping centre.
Yank: A bird from North America (usually applied to rare migrants).