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
