Go to any website or forum about birding – or for that matter open up almost any bird book or magazine – and eventually you’ll come across the term ‘LBJ’. Often loosely tossed into the discussion with a dismissive “It was just another LBJ”, there’s rarely much information to tell you just what the term ‘LBJ’ actually refers to – and how you should feel or react if you see one. Well, I’m here to fill that gap (albeit with a hint of controversy mixed into the usual serving of good humour)…
Nothing whatsoever to do with past or present US Presidents, ‘LBJ’ stands for ‘Little Brown Job’ and is a generic term for a bird or a group of birds that birders either can’t or can’t be bothered to identify. One of the most perfectly descriptive of all birding terms (and so much easier to understand than, say “jizz”, which is derived from “General Impression of Size and Shape” – I know, I know), an ‘LBJ’ is just that: a “little brown job”, or any small, brown, unremarkable bird that you either see well and can’t identify, see poorly and can’t identify, or see but have more to do with your life than worry about the identification of every small brown bird that crosses your path.
Where you live depends on your personal definition of what an ‘LBJ’ might constitute and your reaction to seeing one. In North America, for example, most birders would probably be talking about one of several common Sparrows when they shrug and say “An ‘LBJ’ of some sort”, though occasionally bewildered novices will admit that small shorebirds all look like ‘Little Brown Jobs’ and can’t be separated (they can, but it takes plenty of time and a lot of effort); in northern Europe birders would be talking about the ubiquitous Dunnock (a bird supposedly so dull it’s name actually means little more than ‘dun-coloured bird’, but look closely and it’s quite a little brown gem in its own way). Neither the New World birder or his or her counterpart in Europe will be too bothered or excited when they see a ‘Little Brown Job’: it’s just an ‘LBJ’ after all and experience tells them that though it may possibly be something worth seeing, 99 times out of a hundred it’ll be something they’ve seen 99 times that day already. Where ‘LBJ’s come into a class of their own is almost everywhere else: in East Asia it might be eg one of the remarkably shy Buntings or skulking Acrocephalus warblers that you’ve specifically wanted to see for years and that may take several more years to come out of hiding before you can claim to have seen it properly; in South America it could be one of several hundred species in a swiftly moving bird party chock full of little brown jobs that you couldn’t put a name to, may never see again, and that in all likelihood would have been new for science (in which case expressing ‘LBJ’ is usually done wistfully and in sorrow rather than casually).
An ‘LBJ’ you might want to see well – a Radde’s Warbler Phylloscopus schwarzi, photographed in China.
So when should YOU use the ‘LBJ’ descriptor – and how will birders around you react?
In normal birding circumstances – a quick trip round the local park, for example – when numbers don’t count and you’re not looking for anything specific ‘LBJ’ can be thrown to the wind as often as you like and no-one will mind (until, perhaps, they realise that you can’t actually identify ANYTHING and are trying to cover up a complete lack of birding skills by using a phrase you just learnt on the internet). If, say, you’re hurrying down a reedy path to get to a hide before the ‘first for the State or (even) country’ disappears forever then it’s perfectly appropriate not to stop and spend time poring over every little ‘Little Brown Job’ you disturb. However, if you’ve just spent £10,000 on a once-in-a-lifetime trip to a previously unbirded part of the Colombian foothills it’s extremely unlikely that either your guide or your fellow birders will take too kindly to your telling them that you “just had an ‘LBJ’ a few minutes ago”, and thinking about it now have no idea what it was, but what time is lunch? No, that would be unhelpful and unwise my friend…
So, what is an ‘LBJ’? It’s little; it’s brown, or dun, or dull, or all three; it’s possibly the highlight of your birding career but more probably it’s not; it’s a phrase used to cover up a lack of skill, as a catch-all by a lazy birder, or by a birder rushing to see something else; it’s said dismissively or with the sort of passion reserved for a lost love; and – for three letters – it’s an amazingly versatile, often highly nuanced, term that will either allow you to enter into the cliquey world of birding or see you excluded for all time. Use it carefully, ‘LBJ’ is a whole lot bigger than you might think…
