over the weekend i dove into the deep end of peep identification. "peep" (or "stint" depending on where you live) is a slang term used to describe any species of small sandpiper. there are five or six north american peeps and they're agonizingly difficult to identify with physical field marks. the least sandpiper (depicted above) is easy enough to differentiate because it's the only american peep with yellow legs. but consider that the video below contains not one, but three species' of birds:

and being able to look at any of them and say with confidence what they are takes a lot of practice. you can narrow it down by observing whether the primary flight feathers extend past the tail (an adaptation for the longer-distance migration strategies of the baird's and white-rumped sandpipers), by contrasting the length and shape of the bill (however unreliable, as bill lengths vary by sex and often overlap), and by carefully analyzing foraging posture and behavior. considering a birder will typically be combing through large flocks of majoratively one species in search for an outlier which may or may not be there, this becomes a game of Where Is Waldo for masochists. i am not good at it. it's very hard.

because of the difficulty of identifying peeps, experts recommend learning these birds through extensive familiarity. getting used to each species' silhouettes and subtle idiosyncracies. kind of like how when you spend enough time with a roommate, you'll eventually be able to recognize what their footsteps sound like and how they breathe. as neature walk would put it, you can tell that it's a semipalmated sandpiper "because of the way it is".

i took the scenic route to the point of this post, but here it is: birders my age tend to use words like "impression" or "gestalt" to describe this type of identification feature. older, more traditional birders call this "general impression of size and shape", or GISS, but the more traditional spelling and pronunciation of this term is...

JIZZ

THEY CALL IT JIZZ! IT'S ON WIKIPEDIA! IT'S IN OUR FIELD GUIDES! DAVID ALLEN SIBLEY AT SEVERAL POINTS IN HIS LIFE SAT DOWN AT HIS PC TO WRITE ABOUT JIZZ!

birders will fully say "i identified that bird from its jizz" and it's rude to groan or laugh. this term has been used in birding since the 1920s so it has a rich oral history, but i'm astonished that anyone isn't too embarassed to use it unironically.

i do not want to identify sandpipers by their jizz! you cannot make me!