Persons whose hobby is to identify and study birds in nature, usually with the aid of optical equipment. North American birders number in the millions, making birding as popular as hunting or fishing. Birders interact via cultural forms incorporating speech and nonverbal utterances, narratives, customs, ritual, dress, tools, and technology. Until the early decades of this century, birders were more likely to “collect” specimens by shooting in order to identify birds “in the hand.” The availability of high-quality optics and improvement in methods and guides for field identification have transformed birders from shooters to sighters. “A bird in the bush is worth two in the hand” is a purposeful parody, and was the motto of Bird-Lore, the flrst journal of the National Audubon Society. Landmarks in the history of bloodless birding include the 1900 founding of the Christmas Bird Count by Frank M.Chapman, the 1934 publication of Roger Tory Peterson’s A Field Guide to the Birds, the 1968 establishment of the American Birding Association, and the 1984 advent of the World Series of Birding, a fund-raising birdathon, sponsored by the New Jersey Audubon Society. North Americans use “birder” and “birding” more likely than “bird-watcher” and “bird-watching,” and examples of usage include: “Where did you bird fall migration?” “Have you birded Attu?” and “I’m birding Churchill in June.” More particularly, one might go “owling,” “hawking,” or on a “rail romp,” depending on the “target” species; “wire-birding” is done while birders are driving. Identifying a bird by “jizz,” a composite of features such as general impression, size, and shape, is possible only by skilled birders who can, for instance, “call” birds at great distance, distinguishing a male “Coop” (Cooper’s Hawk) from a female “Sharpie” (Sharp-Shinned Hawk) in an autumn sky of migrating raptors. “Pishing,” done by birders of all levels of expertise, is onomatopoeic of the sound made to flush birds from cover. The word might be used as in, “He pished up a Song,” meaning that a Song Sparrow flushed to investigate the pishing. In the field, birders often use abbreviated common names like “Buffy” for Buff-Breasted Sandpiper, “T.V.” for Turkey Vulture, and “Maggie” for Magnolia Warbler. Most birders acknowledge the significance of the life list, a list of all species of birds identified by one person. “Life birds,” or “lifers,” are birds sought for inclusion on that list, and “hard-core listers” will travel great distances to gain sightings of species reported by the North American Rare Bird Alert, a subscription “hot line” information phone service operated by Houston’s Audubon Society. Any day’s birding might produce sightings of “nice” birds (good examples of species) or “good” birds (rare or difficult sightings for an area or season). Birds the birder is not able to identify qualify as “LBJs” (little brown jobs) or “LBBs” (little brown birds). Birders dress functionally to protect themselves and their equipment from environmental conditions, such as tick bites, cold, rain, and salt spray. Each birder customizes outfits of preferred equipment and clothing, but general rules apply: Wear dull rather than bright colors; Wear nothing to flap in the wind or make noise as one moves. Certain birders also wear clothing and emblems to display their ornithophilic interest: bird club or birder event T-shirts, multipocketed vests decorated with bird club and birding “hot spot” embroidered patches, and narrow-brimmed hats festooned with tiny bird pin souvenirs of American Birding Association conventions. Birders’ automobiles bear bird club window decals and bumper sticker messages of “Caution! Sudden Stops! We’re birdwatchers.” Custom license tags name a favorite or unusual species with perhaps abbreviated or coded spelling: ELF OWL, KISKA-D, HOOPOE, BLUJAY, MERLIN!, BL GRSB (Blue Grosbeak). Birders operate within a hierarchy of expertise and preference that distinguishes “dickie birders” and backyard birders from hawk watchers and birders with life lists of North American sightings exceeding 600 or 700 species. Binoculars are ubiquitous among birders, and any birder also may use a tripod-mounted spotting scope for magnification at greater distances than “binocs” or “binos” will handle. Customarily, birders share scope views, and once a bird is “in the scope” the owner steps back and offers the view to others. Birding may be a solo or ensemble enterprise, but birders who “list” prefer to bird with at least one other person of equal expertise for sighting verifications. Custom is for a birder who has sighted a bird to “call” the identification for others’ benefit, naming at least species, sex, location or flight direction, and continue to call, until others “have” the sighting. Built into that custom is the expectation for accuracy, so those with the greatest expertise are likely to call first. Birders narrate their experiences and exchange information about “hot spots” (locations with avifaunal variety) and identification “tips,” the sharing based on a democratic sense of group identity. Birders greet by inquiring about each others’ sightings, and in these exchanges birders estimate the quality of sightings claimed based on unspoken, indirect evaluations of the claimant’s expertise. Birders’ expressed values include conservation of birds and preservation and creation of habitats, cooperative sighting and continuous study, benign interruption of birds’ natural life, scrupulously honest and exquisitely detailed reporting. High competition is a feature of Big Day events, wherein birders compete to identify the greatest number of birds within twentyfour hours. Christmas Bird Counts are informally competitive for numbers of individual birds and species identifications as well as for numbers of participants and modes of transportation used to accomplish counts. The World Series of Birding involves sponsored teams competing in Big Day fashion for the highest number of species identified during this spring-migration event. Ceremonial closure at birder events is the “countdown,” wherein the checklist is read aloud and birders respond aloud, “yes” or “no,” for each species named, composing a corporate list. In the countdown, beginning or unsuccessful birders can share in the expertise of the assemblage, understanding the meaning of the birder proverb: “Even the worst day birding is the best day you’ll ever have.” Karen Baldwin References Connor, Jack. 1988. The Complete Birder: A Guide to Better Birding. Boston: Houghton Mifflin. Dunne, Pete. 1992. The Feather Quest: A North American Birder’s Year. New York: Penguin Books. Harrison, George H.1979. The Backyard Bird Watcher. New York: Simon and Schuster.
Kastner, Joseph. 1986. A World of Watchers. New York: Alfred Knopf. Komito, Sanford. 1990. Birding’s Indiana Jones: A Chaser’s Diary. N.p. Leahy, Christopher. 1982. The Birdwatcher’s Companion: An Encyclopedic Handbook of North American Birdlife. New York: Bonanza Books. Peterson, Roger Tory. 1957. The Bird Watcher’s Anthology. New York: Harcourt, Brace. Sill, Ben L, Cathryn P.Sill, and John C.Sill. 1993. Beyond Birdwatching: More Than There Is to Know about Birding. Atlanta: Peachtree. Terres, John K., ed. 1991. The Audubon Society Encyclopedia of North American Birds. New York: Wings Books.