Connie Veldink asked:

>On the subject of naming--what is a twitcher? Subspecies of birder?
>Lifelister? European birder? Are Tweeters twitchers?

I left England in 1975 and had never herd the term "Twitcher" used there. I
didn't start my birding activities until I'd been in Canada for about 10
years and the terms that became familiar to me were "lister", "bird watcher"
and "tweeter".

Last year, my partner's mother gave me a library book she thought I might
like to read. Story line; set in England, a renowned "twitcher" is found
dead just after a rare bird has been sighted. It turned out to be a very
bird watcher oriented mystery novel. The word "twitcher" was used to
describe serious birders that travel all over England to add tick marks to
their list of species.

Sorry, but I can't rememeber the name of the book (it wasn't a classic).

I subscribe to the magazine of the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds
(RRSP in the UK) and I don't recall seeing the word used in it. I suspect
that there may be negative conotations attached to the word.

Eric Greenwood
Vancouver, B.C.
egreenw at helix.net