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Stringerism

 About a week ago I read a blog post from a new-ish birder from my state that talked about stringers a little bit. For those who don’t know, a “stringer” is a birder who often reports birds they don’t actually find, for one reason or another. It’s usually not intentional or malicious, but in a lot of cases it’s hard to call it innocent. See, I think there are three main levels of stringerism (the fourth level being intentionally lying about a bird for whatever reason). Level 1 is the new birder or casual birder who reports most of the birds they see. They have a basic field guide grasp of the local birds but don’t understand all the variation or how to tell similar species apart. I did this a lot, reporting Greater Scaup, Black-crowned Night-Heron, Yellow-bellied Flycatchers, Mourning Warblers, Fox Sparrows when I actually saw Lesser Scaup, Great Blue Heron, Eastern Wood-Pewee, Common Yellowthroat, Song Sparrow. Those are just a few of the reports I’ve gone back and corrected on ebird. I once got saved by a shitty internet connection from reporting a Common Raven that turned out to be a Turkey Vulture and American Crow flying around the same area. There are lots of misidentifications like this though that don’t ever get corrected on ebird, Facebook groups, listservs, etc. Most of the time the birds being reported aren’t all that rare, so the mistake never even gets noticed. This stage gets grown out of as the birder gets more experience and realizes their mistakes (like I realized my Fox Sparrows were actually Song Sparrows based on the location and habitat) or as the birder gets corrected by more experienced birders (like another local birder who was reporting Black Vultures that were actually immature Turkey Vultures). Level 2 is the birder who has some experience but has some species or groups that they regularly mis-report. The blog I mentioned at the beginning talked about a birder who keeps reporting Glaucous Gull in places that a Glaucous Gull would almost never hang out. Just looking through that person’s checklists it looks like they probably make a lot of gull mistakes. Since species like Glaucous Gull and Iceland Gull are on the “expected” lists on ebird, they never get flagged and the birder never learns their mistakes. Another bird that gets mistaken a lot around here is Brewer’s Blackbird, which is hard to find in most of Illinois and looks superficially similar to a few common species. There are some birders who seem to find Brewer’s Blackbird a lot more often than anyone else. If I had to guess, I’d say about 25% of the Brewer’s Blackbirds reported in the area are some other species. I wonder if I’m doing this sometimes, but I don’t know for sure. Maybe some of my Thayer’s Gulls are actually Herrings; maybe some of my Sharp-shinned Hawks are actually Cooper’s. I don’t know how someone grows out of this stage since I’ve either never gotten into it or never gotten out. Just learn and be honest with yourself about what you’re really looking at. Level 3 is the birder who finds rarities almost every time they go out birding. These are always talented, experienced birders because otherwise they’d never be taken seriously and they’d get corrected by better birders. This type of stringer is able to spot small differences in one bird compared to the others around it and think that “rarity” is more likely than “variation.” They think Gyrfalcon instead of “large Peregrine Falcon.” They call a distant shorebird a Sharp-tailed Sandpiper instead of assuming it’s a bright Pectoral Sandpiper. There are more than one birder around here that often find multiple state review list species in one outing. The most I remember was four review list species on a single list, none of which were photographed or seen by anyone else. In fact, I would say that’s the surest sign of a level 3 stringer: they find better birds by themselves than they do in a group. It makes no sense at all that you would find more birds with fewer pairs of eyes and fewer scopes, so if someone is doing just that, there’s probably something fishy going on. These birders still aren’t doing it intentionally though. They just don’t know the difference between a definite rarity, probable rarity, and possible rarity. But at the same time, I can’t call these birders innocent. They need to know better than to report species that others are going to spend time and gas driving to look for, even taking time off work in some cases to chase birds that never existed. There was a good article on the ABA blog awhile back that’s worth a read: http://blog.aba.org/2014/05/on-stringing.html (which also uses the large falcon = Gyrfalcon example that I swear I didn’t plagiarize haha). But in keeping with the theme of this blog--bird your own way--I would sum up the stringer issue this way: if you want to put that 80% Neotropic Cormorant on your personal list, do it! It’s your list and if you’re convinced about what you’ve seen, don’t let someone else’s doubts ruin your enjoyment of that bird. But at the same time BE FUCKING HONEST with others about what you see. If you aren’t certain, make sure they know you’re only 80% certain or it’s a 20% chance or whatever. Don’t ruin someone else’s birding experience just because you want to brag about what you’ve found.

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Yellow-breasted Chat, you’re not fooling anyone. Try again in a few years when your taxonomy is fully resolved.

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Note: I absolutely adore @birdandmoon comics and have imitated their style here in homage.

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I remember several years ago a birder was posting on a forum asking about a bird that had been sighted out in the middle of a large lake and wondering if there was any way to get a better look because his equipment wasn’t very good. More Experienced Birder helpfully replies that he can’t get a better look without spending thousands of dollars on optics.

I think without saying it you can guess that this MEB was retired with a healthy pension. And what he said was probably technically true. There probably was no way to have a good look at the bird without high-end equipment. And this issue isn’t unique to birding. In any hobby the person who spends the most money is going to be the “best.” The best photographs will be taken by a photographer who spends a lot of money. The best coin collection will be owned by a collector who spends a lot of money. I could go on and on.

I completely reject the idea that seeing more birds makes you a better birder. That’s an overarching theme of this blog but not the point of this post because MEB was right. The more money you spend the more birds you will see, whether that’s equipment upgrades or travel expenses. But where was the advice on where and how to find that species or similar birds without fancy optics...with binoculars...hell, even with just the naked eye? I promised myself from that point that if I was ever giving help or advice to another birder, “spend money” would not be the solution answer. And I can make suggestions based on my own experience. I’m one of the more “serious” birders in my area, but all my equipment (scope, tripod, binoculars, camera) cost under $500 total. I think it was all around $400. The best way to find distant or tricky birds is simply to network. Don’t be “that guy” that follows someone around just to use their scope, but when a rare bird is found almost all birders are willing to share with someone who needs help seeing it. Or instead of trying to cover a large hotspot, become an expert in all the birds that visit a local park. Or just study the birds until you’re able to identify all the common species even at a great distance by shape and behavior, which will help you pick out something unusual when it shows up. I could go on and on with ways to bird, find lots of birds, find rarities, identify almost everything you see without spending a lot of money on equipment. Sure I’d never be able to record a 700-species ABA big year with my set up, but I find a lot of good ones. You don’t need to spend thousands of dollars to be serious in the hobby. Don’t listen if anyone says otherwise.

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Note the yellow spots on its head and mostly gray face and body.

little bird

January ‘15

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Note the yellow spots on its head and the mostly gray face and body.

White-Throated Sparrow

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The Golden-crowned Sparrow, part II

Well, it was completely unintended, but I have two parts to this post. I had the idea for this blog before the bird was ever discovered, but it’s coincidentally given me two different things to talk about now.

The sparrow was originally found on Tuesday. It was searched for on Wednesday, Thursday, Friday with no success; then on Saturday morning someone reported it relocated. The rest of the day birders searched for it, but the only ones who were successful were a trio who, uh, let’s just say they always seem to find the bird they’re looking for. I’m not going to accuse anyone of lying or being wrong, but I do have a lot of skepticism about the Saturday sightings.

Golden-crowned Sparrow doesn’t look a lot like the common local sparrows, but a tan morph White-throated Sparrow has a lot of superficial similarities to an immature Golden-crowned Sparrow. I’ll reblog some photos of the two species for easy comparison. It was raining off and on all day Saturday, which could have caused a wet White-throated Sparrow to look even more like a Golden-crowned. If you’re going out with Golden-crowned Sparrows on your mind, every tan morph White-throated is going to look like the bird you want, and you’ll need to make a conscious effort to rule that species out. The first report from Saturday compared the bird to White-crowned Sparrow (which makes sense because White-crowned is the most similar species in terms of shape and size), except that there were no White-crowned Sparrows present. Comparing a bird your mind wants to see with a bird that isn’t actually there is a really iffy way to hunt for rarities. I genuinely hope that everyone who reported the bird on Saturday actually saw it, but I suspect that the first report made an honest mistake (like we all do) and then the other three “found” their target like always.

Which finally brings me to my theme: Bird your own way. Someone’s personal list is their own business as long as they aren’t making false reports and getting other birders to drive long distances to look for a bird that never existed. If they get enjoyment from having birds on their lists that they didn’t actually see, then good for them, right? Does enjoying birding “count” if the birds you’re enjoying aren’t the ones you think they are? Anyone with any thoughts, agreement, or disagreement?

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The Golden-crowned Sparrow

For those of you who stumble upon this post before I flesh out who I am and what my blog is about, let me just say briefly that it’s about dissatisfaction with how the birding hobby is organized right now and my attempts to form or find a group of like-minded birders. I live in Illinois, and recently a Golden-crowned Sparrow, which has been recorded in the state fewer than 10 times, was spotted. There was a lot of initial excitement, but the bird was not relocated the next day (it was first seen and reported in the evening, too late for anyone else to go look that day). That’s when one birder suggested spreading some seed on the road to lure it out to be seen if it was still around, and a few other birders agreed that that was a good idea.

I think there could be some debate there about whether baiting that bird was ethical, and ultimately I’d probably be on the side that said it was ok. The road it was being baited onto was a seldom-traveled gravel road deep inside a park. My issue is how quickly the idea was suggested and accepted by birders who would consider themselves ethical and not typically want to disturb the birds.

An immature Golden-crowned Sparrow is a bland brown bird, not the kind of bird that would get people excited about wildlife, and was located in a rural park where it would not be seen by anyone except birders specifically looking for it. There was plenty of food available already and the weather was not harsh; hell, being this far out of range, the bird is unlikely to survive to reproduce anyway so keeping it alive was not a priority. No, the ONLY reason for anyone to bait the bird out into the open and make it more vulnerable to raptors was so birders could get a +1 on their personal lists. The fact that people were so focused on their own +1 that they didn’t stop to question the ethics bothered me.