IN THE birding world “stringing” is a bad thing.
To string is to misidentify a bird, not necessarily through lack of knowledge but because you’re so desperate to see a particular rare bird that you convince yourself that a common bird is the rarity you are looking for.
It happens regularly, and I was nearly guilty of the crime myself last week.
A calm, clear day tempted me out duck-hunting, not in the marshes with a decoy, a gundog and a fowling piece, but armed only with a good telescope at Llanfairfechan promenade.
The stretch of water between here and Puffin Island just off Penmon Point, Anglesey, is a great place to look for offshore birds in calm conditions.
All too often, however, fast currents and prevailing winds stir the water up into rough, chunky waves, which make for tough birding conditions.
One second you glimpse a distant dark shape on the water, but in the next, as you try to focus the scope, the waves have changed and your target can't be seen.
Then the waves dip again, and you get a second tantalizing view of your quarry before it disappears again.
To make things worse, many here are diving birds which spend a long time underwater looking for food. You need to factor in the possible length and direction of their dives when you try to relocate them with your telescope now in focus.
It's quite a challenge, so there's real satisfaction in actually seeing and identifying the birds.
So here I was, alongside a few other birders with telescopes, looking for a Black Scoter.
This particular drake is yet another American vagrant, but actually quite a regular here at Llanfairfechan over the past few winters.
He is your archetypal “Daffy Duck”: a bit of a loner, a plain black duck with a stonking great yellow blob on his bill, sitting high on the water, often with his tail cocked up, as buoyant as a bath duck.
And there he was, looming large in my telescope!
The first time I'd found my own Black Scoter. Riding high on the waves, tail up, yellow bill - perfect!
I admired him for a while and then scanned left to see what else was about: Great Northern Diver - lovely; Red-throated Diver, no make that two; Great Crested Grebe, and then another drake - Black Scoter??
Impossible!
Had he flown past me? I scanned back to my first bird, and sure enough he was still there.
My heart thumped, could this be a first for North Wales - two Black Scoters?
Bird Number One flew over to join Number Two. This wasn't right, the Black Scoter is a single bird, but now the penny began to drop.
Common Scoter gather in groups here regularly; the drakes are also plain black, and they have a slight yellow patch on the bill which in some light can mislead the unwary into thinking they're looking at the Black Scoter's more substantial hooter.
So I was stringing a commoner after all.
But then a shout went out - another Scoter to the right. I swung my scope over and searched feverishly for the third bird.
On his own, much further from the others, this one had a slight upward curl to his tail, and somehow seemed slightly larger on the water.
I held my breath ‘till he turned his head. Yes! There was a massive swollen yellow blob on the bill, disproportionately large and positively glowing orange-yellow.
So, a narrow escape from being a stringer! OK, I didn't find the bird for myself, but at least I got to see the real thing.
