The Southern African Bird Atlas Project involved thousands of birdwatchers who collected millions of bits of data and built up a comprehensive picture on the distribution and movement of most of our bird species. Twitching Once one has a lifelist, and you become obsessive about building it up, then you become a twitcher. A twitcher is someone who actively seeks out new birds to put on their lifelist and the word is supposed to describe the uncontrollable spasms of excitement when seeing a new bird for the first time. Many birders are twitchers to some extent, but the degree to which the ticking of new species is important is a personal thing. Twitching has led to a whole vocabulary to describe what happens when you go twitching.
Most birders still enjoy seeing birds they have already seen.
Both power-birding and twitching have leant themselves to the use of a whole range of techniques for finding birds. One of these is the use of tape-recorded calls. Birders need to remember that birds are wild animals and disturbance should be kept to a minimum. Familiarity with a code of conduct for birders is a good idea.