Getting Pished

I finally got Pete Dunne's book The Art of Pishing.  What a great book for a beginner birder!  It has a CD that helps you to learn how to pish ( call birds with the calls of birds).  For those of you who don't know what I am talking about, Pete says that you are copying the sound of Tufted Titmice calling attention to an intruder.  I personally think that it sounds like a Chickadee.  Anyways you start making the sound of the bird that is pissed at you and you make it loud and forceful and with emotion!   I never heard other birders pish so strongly before, but it really works.  I tried just the first step that he showed (the basic pish) and I had birds all over me within just  a minute.  It was simply amazing!  Sorry for the quality of the pictures.  They were taken just before sunset in the dark sections of the woods.

Watch how this Titmouse is so curious about that loud sound coming from that guy on the ground with the camera

Look at the response that this Blue-gray Gnatcatcher is giving.  It looks like my parrot did when I was in college when he was getting into one of his moods where his pupils were dilating and he would pace and screem.

The Cardinals were all over the place and the juveniles were especially nosy.

Here was a Summer Tanager who stay in the treetops and watched from afar.

The Bluejays came in a flock and stayed out of reach of the camera.

What was really interesting was that this Ruby-throated Hummingbird chased off a Titmouse and sat watched me.

The next night I was sitting in the back yard and the Crows found the Great Horned Owl and mobbed him.  I tried to sneak up on them for a picture, but they flew off.  The second part of Petes pishing is to bring in the call of a threat, and an owl is the main bird chosen, so I decided to take advantage of the situation and tried to pish out another group of birds.  I had a couple of Summer Tanagers show up that time too.

12:49 AM - August 7, 2009 - post comment

Pishing...

Sold,
I'm going to amazon to buy it now! How kewl is this!!

Doug in H-town - 3:12 PM - August 7, 2009