Am I a Twitcher?
My partner and I have a playful yet persistent disagreement. She thinks I’m a twitcher and tells everyone when the opportunity presents itself. This is when I spark up and try to interject that I am in fact not a twitcher and that I get equally as excited and information hungry about whatever critter I’m photographing.
This is usually rebutted with “why is your Instagram feed all birds then?” or “but you have a bird wishlist!” or “you play Wingspan!” It’s also at this point that no one really cares and the conversation moves itself on.
So one evening after one of these events as I lay in bed I got to thinking. Am I a twitcher in denial? What is a twitcher exactly? I looked it up and it turns out there’s a whole ranking system of bird obsession. But let's begin with the definition of twitcher.
Collins Dictionary: “A twitcher is an enthusiastic bird-watcher.”
Cambridge Dictionary: “a birdwatcher (= someone whose hobby is watching wild birds in their natural environment), especially one who tries to see birds that are rare in a particular area, and is willing to travel long distances to do this”
Oxford Dictionary: “a person who is very keen on finding and watching rare birds”
Of the above I can definitely say I fit the Collins dictionary definition. I am indeed an enthusiastic bird-watcher though less so without my camera in hand. However when you look a little further in birding circles a twitcher is very much defined as someone who is essentially obsessed with sighting specific (usually rare) birds and ticking them off a list. They are not necessarily at all interested in photographing them either.
After reading far more definitions and blogs than I care to admit it would seem there is a bit of a hierarchy of titles. I’ll try to summarise my cumulative understanding below:
Birdwatcher: a person who notices or watches birds for any reason. Usually casual and “birders” should not be referred to as such
Birder: Beyond enthusiastic bird watching, someone that can identify many (probably almost all in their hometown) birds by sight and/or call
Twitcher: Someone that will travel long distances (like across the world) to see a bird to tick off their list
Ornithologist: “a person who studies or is an expert on birds.”
We can probably safely assume an ornithologist does most of the above albeit with scientific intent in the mix. Peak bird nerd!
The train of thought was in full motion now and the brakes were broken. While I gripped tight to my argument “but I get excited about all the critters” I started to wonder what people that were borderline or actually obsessed with said other critters were called. Do spider fanatics have a whole hierarchy of titles based on obsession level? Do moth fanatics? What about bats? Or beetles? Less popular perhaps but they exist, what are they called?
As far as I can find these other critters have no such special order of names. Insects just get the people who study them. Entomologist. Apparently 'entomophile' is sometimes used for people who love insects but it didn’t seem to come up much.
Moths (and butterflies) get a little more with “lepidopterist” but it looks like this term, while it doesn't have to be, is usually attached to an entomologist with a special interest in these insects.
Spiders are the same “arachnophile” for the everyday lovers or the actual scientists of the field are arachnologists who study spiders and other arachnids.
So, why? Why are birds so special? I mean they're really cool but so are spiders and caterpillars. I mean heck, caterpillars build a lil house they freaking dissolve into a kind of soup in and somehow turn that soup into an entirely different insect - a moth or butterfly. That's pretty amazing. Absolutely worthy of a hierarchical title system based on obsession level.
I have a couple theories that kind of bleed into each other… It’s literally just the train of thought. So, let's call it The Lizard Brain theory, because that's where the thought starts.
If you don’t know, the lizard brain is a popular term referring to part of the limbic system in the brain responsible for the more survival driven things. Fight or flight for example. I think somewhere deep in our lizard brain we’re a little bit inclined to be more wary of spiders/snakes/insects as they (usually) pose a bigger risk to life than, say, a lorikeet. Because of this we are more likely to anthropomorphise and therefore find ways to relate to birds over these other critters.
I developed a theory of legs: quantity vs general acceptance level.
0 legs = dangerous, low to no acceptance
1-4 legs = acceptable leg count. Is either missing a leg and not threatening, generally not threatening or food/usable animal (like a horse). Prime acceptance zone.
5+ legs = horror and probably small so the horror can sneak up and infiltrate your space. Some of the smallest horrors can kill you, low to no acceptance.
Due to this general aversion to the 0 legs and 5+ legs categories it’s also kind of fed this entire cultural behaviour and language toward the less desirables. Imagine for a moment we spoke about birds the way we do about spiders. I will list some examples:
“Omg there's a fucking bee eater in my house. I've seen how they bash prey against a tree before throwing it in the air like a toy and eating it. Fuck that, kill it with fire”
“Get the flamethrower, there's a kookaburra in the garage - I've seen what those psychopaths do to snakes!”
People often say stuff like that about spiders in the house and the reality is a common spider to see in the house (at least in Australia) is a huntsman and it's just as dangerous as a bee eater to a human, which is, not at all. In fact a huntsman would be far more useful than a bee eater at keeping your house pest free.
Now imagine we spoke about the “creepy” critters in the same endearing way many other animals get:
“Naw look at that floofy lil huntsman with his delicate pedipalps” (pedipalp by the way is essentially “foot feeler” and refers to the tiny little sensory organs spiders use near their mouth. Legit little delicate feeling feet).
Pshh look at that snake curled on the rock. She's just living her best life up there, sunbaking totally nude, not a care in the world!”
“Awww look at this lil jumping spider's tiny toe beans!”
Look as this cute head tilt, like a puppy.
It’s also worth noting that birds are so widely accessible. Live in a city? Birds. Tropics? Birds. Arid desert? Birds. Sure bugs are everywhere too but they require a bit more effort to spot nor do they sing loud songs alerting you to their presence and even when they do they are still hard to find. This is a large reason they feature more prominently in my portfolio than any other animal. I’m time poor – macro photography is a whole thing and takes a lot more time than a photo of a bird with a zoom lens. Mammals like wallabies or tree rats are far harder to find and scare easily, making actually achieving photographing them pretty time consuming too. So for the time poor wildlife photographer, birds it is. And don’t get me wrong, birds are spectacular animals. I mean they are literally dinosaurs.
I think we’ve just gotten carried away with the expectation that insects and spiders can’t be cute and should be scary. This attitude means we don’t stop to pay attention and appreciate the awesome little critters too. And yes I know, there are also many sea animals with no legs that don't get the ick treatment like a snake might but they don’t count because we can stay as far away as we like from the sea so it poses only an optional threat.
And yes I am also aware of other things like wallabies and wombats but please refer to my leg theory above.
So, am I a twitcher? By definition, no and by my own account no. Am I a birder? Maybe. But maybe the only reason I get that title is because it's the only title there is. I can’t accept the exclusion of all the other critters though so for now I will keep denying that I am even a birder.
I think I am just a lover and information hoarder of all animals and that just doesn't have some cool catchy title.
