For some people finding rarities is the raison d’être of their birding selves. That act of independent discovery has been elevated almost to the status of a principle, which often forms the basis of opposition to twitching. Some argue that without those who go faithfully to watch the same area day in, day out, in the hope they might find something unusual, no rare birds would every be discovered. Twitchers, by contrast, are viewed as parasitic upon the endeavours of these other honest ornithological toilers, who are known as ‘patch-workers’.
The fact is that many birders both twitch others’ rarities and also work a local patch themselves… Finding rarities is enormously satisfying, but if we’re honest a major part of the thrill is the kudos derived from our peers’ metaphoric thumbs of approval. Without the rare bird being found there would certainly be no twitch. But then without the twitch there can be no glory or, at least, much less glory.
~ Mark Cocker, Birders: Tales of a Tribe (2001)
And ’tis the bird which has set the local birders and bazooka photographers a-frenzy:
An Eurasian Curlew (Numenius arquata) (the bird in the background is the more common, and much smaller, Whimbrel) first sighted in Buloh yesterday after the volunteers’ appreciation day activities, and again today by other birder-hopefuls. And to think that they’re so common in the UK that they’re simply referred to as the ‘curlew’, and we saw them everywhere on the beaches in Guernsey!
Disclaimer: I am not a twitcher!