Tweeters -
I can confirm Dennis' comments on the ineffectiveness of "pishing" in
Australia. On a trip there last November, we noticed that the birds
would not investigate which North American preditor was "pissing" at
them. We had considerably more sightings when Aussies made "kissy"
noises to attract birds.
Louise Martell, Seattle
e-mail martell at u.washington.edu

On Fri, 10 Feb 1995, Dennis Paulson wrote:

> Stuart, you asked about pishing.
>
> Well, I've pished on all continents (except Antarctica; you can freeze your
> pisher there), and North America really is *the* pishing continent. It's
> less effective in tropical America (but many birds, especially migrants,
> respond) and relatively ineffective anywhere out of North America,
> but--notwithstanding what some experts have decreed--there's always a
> species or two that will respond, so it's worth trying. I've asterisked
> birds on my day lists that have responded when I've been in some other
> countries. I think sometimes you attract a species that then attracts
> other species by its alarm calls; I've occasionally had quite a flock build
> up, once in southern France with tons of goldcrests and tits and once in
> the mountains of Nepal with several babbler species that I can recall. You
> *can* pish yourself blue in the face much of the time without getting a
> response; that was the case in Australia. Some people years ago were
> talking about white-eyes being the nuclear species of flocks in parts of
> Asia and Africa, and perhaps imitating white-eye calls would be the answer.
> I can't imitate them and haven't had tapes of them to try.
>
> Pishing to me sounds like the alarm calls of wrens and especially vireos; I
> don't know if that is significant, but someone could certainly do a study
> by comparing what came to tapes of alarm calls of various local birds.
> It'd be a fine project for someone. I played Red-breasted Nuthatch calls
> once and got a good multispecies response.
>
> Pygmy-owl toots--if you know what the local pygmy-owl sounds like--should
> always be good. Ferruginous Pygmy-Owl calls are great in the Neotropics.
> I tried North American pygmy-owl calls in Russia with no results, but I did
> have passerines come to pishing at times there.
>
> Doesn't work in Hawaii. A theoretical paper hypothesized that it wouldn't,
> as there is no common avian predator.
>
> Dennis Paulson phone: (206) 756-3798
> Slater Museum of Natural History fax: (206) 756-3352
> University of Puget Sound e-mail: dpaulson at ups.edu
> Tacoma, WA 98416
>
>
>