Greetings All


I must disagree with the assessment that pishing does not work in Europe.
Admittedly, one has to pish with more "stealth" and birds do not respond as well, but they do respond. I know a couple Brits who pish in England, and I had enough success during my trip to Bulgaria with a local wildlife photographer that he now commonly pishes to bring birds in to be photographed. I owe good quality photos of several passerines on that trip to pishing, and a couple species were seen only because pishing drew them out of thick cover.


In general, tits, crests (including YB and Pallas' Warblers), woodpeckers, and finches pish in fairly well. Other warblers will respond, too.
In Bulgaria, Hawfinches consistently responded, but stayed just far enough away so that I could not photograph them.

For pishing to work in Europe, I found that one had to be stealthier.... one could not just stand in the middle of the path and pish loudly in a group. Usually small numbers of people, somewhat concealed in the foliage, and as little movement as possible was necessary... but it did work. I found 7 Yellow-browed Warblers in Britain during approximately 10 days birding, all by pishing them in. It also worked quite well on an Indigo Bunting in Norfolk :o)




Cheers
Steven Mlodinow