Twitcher

Part of speech: noun

Pronunciation: /ˈtwɪt͡ʃə(ɹ)/

Definitions

1. A person who observes birds as a hobby, especially making quick trips to see rare species ; someone who experiences sudden, small, involuntary muscle movements or jerks
2. An individual dedicated to spotting and identifying bird species, often traveling for rare sightings ; a person affected by brief, uncontrollable muscle twitches or spasms
3. One who pursues birdwatching fervently, frequently seeking out rare birds in the wild ; a person who exhibits small, involuntary movements of muscle fibers

Etymology: The birdwatching sense of "twitcher" is an invention of the late 1950s or 1960s, and its origin story is a motorcycle ride. According to R.E. Emmett, writing in British Birds in 1983, the term arose in Britain in the 1950s to describe Howard Medhurst, a birder who regularly rode pillion on Emmett's motorcycle to rare-bird sites and arrived there shivering. The nickname stuck to his restless, jittery enthusiasm for chasing a sighting. The word is simply "twitch" with the agentive suffix "-er" added. "Twitch" itself is an older word meaning a sudden jerk or pull, so the shaking Medhurst displayed gave the new sense its image. The muscle-spasm sense of "twitcher" is the older, more general use, and the birding sense grew out of it as a jocular nickname. The birding meaning was first recorded in print in 1970, although the term is recalled as already in use in 1968. R.T. Porter's 1982 letter in British Birds also records the word's early use.

Synonyms: birdwatcher, birder