Actually you know I've found that a lot of twitchers I run into have to be
relatively affluent in order to be spending money on birding trips the way
they do. Their expenditure on these trips is often way above what your
average working person or retiree can afford, and similarly the amounts they
spend ( or should I say are allowed to spend by their partners) on optical
equipment is often above average too.
I think a more "accurate" oxymoron would be to speak of a "poor twitcher".
In fact though I suppose there are grades of twitchers from those who can't
afford even a weekend away birding, perhaps these are the "un-affluent
twitchers", through those who travel around Oz birding as best they can
( regular twitchers ?), to those migratory egotists who float around
ephemerally from one country to another spending money like water in their
birding pursuits. These latter I term the "effluent twitchers".
Actually I find myself quite disdainful of the latter types, partly because
lots of them are yanks pretending to be nice people - but mainly because for
me, birding overseas has a disloyal aspect to it - a bit like I would feel
if I went to Melbourne to barrack for one of their crummy footy teams, or if
someone in Brissie decided to support the Crows.
Love. Tony.
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