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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Farnboro John" data-source="post: 1635225" data-attributes="member: 36432">Intersting clump of opinions.I agree that making an honest mistake - or reporting a possible when you are not sure - is not "stringing" in the pejorative sense.  One might expect some teasing from mates, but then everybody involved understands reputations are not truly at stake....I hope.Labelling someone publicly as a stringer is exactly as you say.  It should not be done lightly (should it be done at all?) The few known stringers on the circuit seem to be tolerated when present but I wouldn't like to be talked about behind my back the way or to the extent they are.....  This seems mostly to be a local rather than a national issue.  I couldn't say who the best known stringers are in the South East, North West, East Anglia etc: but I know one or two people locally whose claims occasionally seem a bit ambitious.  Years ago I turned up for insurance at a Meadow Bunting that had allegedly been trapped and roosted overnight, and the locals when they found out who had "trapped" the bird grunted that if they'd known they'd have stayed in bed....  My own records were commented on to BF's Dendroica by one local worthy in a year when I was competing with BF's JW Andrewes to see who could find more in a 10 mile radius: Dendroica's tart reply was that if the person in question spent less time at his computer and more in the field he might find something, too!  He had been with me at the finding of many of the birds in question.I've also been around a few times and seen birds that were subsequently claimed by others as BB rarities when I know damn well they weren't and were seen well enough to rule it out.  The only possible conclusion in such circumstances is that the person involved is deliberately stringing, or perhaps going through the strange process of self-delusion described so brilliantly by Mark Cocker in Birders: Tales of a Tribe.  I've not yet felt strongly enough to put the boot in on these people.You must think very carefully before slinging mud.  Probably better to put an objective description in to the committee.  However, surely there must be a point beyond which a wild, out-of-control habitual stringer should be reined in publicly?  The only alternative is for their reports to gradually be assigned qualifiers such as "unconfirmed report", so that birders hoping to travel for rarities don't burn quite so much petrol....I dunno.  What do you all think?John</blockquote>

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