Other terms for "styles" of birdwatching/bird identification?
How about holistic? - this basically is, as I understand it, the "modern" integrated approach to bird watching/ID that most of us will now use (possibly without knowing it!) on a daily basis. Jizz will certainly be a part of it - if jizz is just strictly regarded as a general impression of size and shape. Then we will all use jizz everyday - some birds are relatively easy to ID on jizz alone - airborne Lapwings and Jays for example. Many experienced seawatchers and vis-mig watchers may just possibly just ID birds on jizz alone.
A holistic approach will utilise jizz, along with plumage appearances, vocalisations, habitat preferences, behaviour, time of year and probably other aspects I can't recall at present!
I noticed that on your Kingsway Business Park thread post the other day that you said you ID'd some Skylarks by jizz. I would guess (although I stand to be corrected!) that you not only utlised jizz but also used vocalisations (to a large extent) and habitat preferences to a lesser extent to arrive at your conclusions as to the ID of these birds? So realistically whilst using jizz you were also taking a holistic approach to arrive at your conclusion to the ID of these birds?
Can't claim to be an expert on these matters but the modern day, integrated holistic approach would seem to have evolved as we have developed greater respect for the rights of birds to go about their daily lives without man's adverse interference - shooting them out of the sky as a means of identifying a bird (the what's hit is history....what's missed is mystery mentality) of less than a century ago, egg-collecting etc. We might still have some way to go on this holistic approach.... where there are instances of interference in birds lives that are still above acceptable levels but jizz and the holistic approach are enjoyable and "user-friendly" ways of watching birds.
Apologies if as usual I have taken this thread wobbling off at a slight tangent!
Quote In 1922 Coward defined, for the first time, a concept still in widespread use today:that of 'jizz',the way in which an experienced birder can identify a species on even a brief,distant view,because of some indefinable quality of its appearance. In Cowards own words;
Jizz may be applied to or possessed by any animate and some inanimate objects,yet we cannot clearly define it...as a rule,i is character rather than characteristics.....something definiate yet indescribable, something which instantly registers identity in the brain,though how or what is seen remains unspecified. It is its jizz.
If Jizz (What the bird does habitually, that conveys to us it's identity) means General Impression of Size and Shape....then why is it J and not G ? not to mention the zz's ?
Melanie perhaps the first person to use the term was also a charades player "one word - sounds like - GISS"
If Jizz (What the bird does habitually, that conveys to us it's identity) means General Impression of Size and Shape....then why is it J and not G ? not to mention the zz's ?
Innocent that I am the birding use of the term was the only one that I was aware of (until I just googled the word and got a load of porno sites )
There's an excellent (out of print) book "Birds by character: Field Guide to Jizz Identification" by Rob Hume with excellent little sketchy illustrations by Ian Wallace, John Busby and Darren Rees. A must for any library.
are there any jizz experts on the forum who wouldn't mind imparting some of thier jizz skills on a jizz novice? I fancy getting into jizz and jizzing can only help my field craft surely! I think my love of silouhettes was me jizzing before I realised what I was doing.
There is the apocryphal story of a visiting British birder in the'States (where the term is apparently less well-known) picking out a European wader among all the 'peeps' and explaining how it could be recognised by its' jizz. As he's leaving one local says to his American host "Gee these Brits are SO thorough"
I always thought Jizz was a well-known (and unfortunately named) birding term...
A birding term that annoys me is Blogging. It is used all the time at Spurn, for example "2 Arctic Skuas blogging". This does not mean that a couple of skuas are writing blogs, it actually means they are just kind of hanging around, whereas most stuff at Spurn tends to be moving through... I wonder where that comes from?
-- Edited by Rob Thorpe on Tuesday 17th of November 2009 07:47:21 PM