[mou] Pishing in Action

[Sharon Stiteler]

I've heard several theories on why pishing brings out birds:  they think
it's the call of a fallen nestling and are going down to investigate,
pishing mimics a warning call of wrens and the birds investigate the warning
call, the birds can't figure out what the heck the sound is and are just
plain curious.  

Last night a group from The Raptor Center went for some light birding at the
Bass Ponds.  We were walking along a trail and heard a high pitched begging
call.  We found a large nest cavity and guessed that it was perhaps young
hairy woodpeckers making the call.  As we watched, a redstart came in and
around the hole to investigate as did a yellow warbler.  The yellow warbler
left fairly quickly, but the redstart went close the hole at least three
times and flitted continually around the area where the cavity was located
on the tree.  Natural pishing, who knew?


-- 
Sharon Stiteler
Uptown, Minneapolis
The Official Bird Lady of www.neilgaiman.com

See the mouse incident at http://www.wildbirdstore.net/kare11.html