L.A. SPEAK

Bird words--slang used by Southern California bird-watchers:

burned in the scope v. to have captured remarkable detail of a bird while studying it through binoculars.

LBJ initials for little brown job. Any small brown bird of indeterminate species that the watcher cannot identify. “All I spotted was a pack of LBJs in some bushes.”

life list n . a list of birds seen during one’s lifetime. Many birders also keep state, county and back-yard lists.

pish n . a sound made by birders that is thought to attract birds.

pisher n . one who pishes entirely too much. “That guy’s a real pisher ; he just spooked that Western tanager.”

trash bird n . a common bird, such as a house finch, that birders ignore.

twitcher n . a nervous bird-watcher who rushes from one bird sighting to another. “That twitcher hardly looked at that stunning tricolored blackbird before hunting down some great-tailed grackle!”

whoopie list n . A list of birds seen copulating. Birds often have curious mating rituals--for example, white-throated swifts climb 200 feet, join and then plunge toward the ground in pinwheel fashion, separating just before crashing.

WNK initials for we’ll never know. A glimpse of a bird that shows great promise, but remains unidentified. “It could have been a hermit warbler, but to be honest, it was a WNK. “