#8sunday 16/06/19 The Twitch 03

Greetings, Weekend Writing Warriors! For the next few weeks I will be sharing one of the first short stories I wrote. Its was inspired by a collection of short stories The Itch of the Twitch , by Harvey Tyson, a South African writer. This week we are exposed to the unique dialect that Twitchers (birdwatchers) use amongst themselves.  To keep things clear, I have included a short glossary of Twitching terms at the end of this post.

This story takes ‘twitching’ into the future, and the Multiverse of Homo Galacticus.

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Little Brown Job? So that meant it may be our Mega but then, it could just as easily turn out to be a Chook. Unfortunately, the young of the species we were hunting for was easily confused with many more ubiquitous breeds. Fortunately, my partner was a legendary Jizzer. He could identify breed, sex, and even age by the mere movement of underbrush.

I had spent months doing my research. I had minutely studied and learned to identify the habitat and season that the Xenica was likely to make its rare and brief appearance. I had read all the manuals, and listened to all the lore-masters, dead and alive.

© Kim Magennis

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Glossary of Twitching Terms

Twitching – birdwatching; LBJ – little brown job, a common, often unidentifiable brown bird; Mega– a very rare bird; Chook – already seen or common bird; Jizzer – someone able to jizz, or identify a bird with an overall impression given by the general shape, movement, behaviour, etc; to dip out – to fail to see a bird the twitcher is looking for; Lister – a birdwatcher who keeps an extensive list of all the species they have seen.

source: Birding terms: Birding 101