TRACTRAC CHAT

Birdwatching, or birding, offers different strokes for different folks.

- Koos Pieters

The most ardent group of birders could be the crowd called “twitchers”. Their main aim is often to see how many new birds they can tick off their list, and the overriding impress fellow twitchers.

These folk go to great trouble and expense, and will travel huge distances at short notice, in order to get to places where rarities or new birds can be spotted. This type of activity dictates that one all over the place, and is sometimes – in the eyes of lesser mortals – nothing more than showing off. They often subscribe to an email group that will notify them when and where elusive or rare birds are seen.

They are sometimes considered a slight pain in the butt by traditional and more conservative bird watchers, who may have a totally different agenda, and who often have less money.

This latter group consider themselves to be true bird watchers. They often make it their aim to observe the behaviour of different birds,their feathered friends. They may also have a list of birds on which they tick off those they have seen, but it is certainly not their main aim to constantly add names to the list.