The Name Avithera

Avithera, my blog pseudonym, is a name I have coined from Latin and Greek roots, though a Google search reveals it happens to be a surname, which may have a completely different origin and meaning for all I know. So I have not come up with a unique name - very hard to do in this day and age.

I derived the name as follows:

Avi of course comes from Latin meaning bird and thera comes from Greek and means hunter. Putting the two together gives avithera which means bird hunter or bird hunting - with a camera of course.

I feel birding and bird photography share a lot in common with hunting, as many of the same skills are required. Hunting is what we did for thousands of generations as hunter-gatherers. The hunting instinct is still strong in some people hence we still have hunting which has now become a sport for many and for a rapidly declining few hunting is still a way of making a subsistence living. We can now indulge our hunting spirit/instincts without killing anything and instead of shooting with a gun we can shoot with our cameras - we often refer to photos as shots.

 

Acknowledgement

I sincerely thank Gouldiae for his persistent friendly badgering and encouragement for me to give up sharing my photos and bird notes via email and use a blog instead.