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To Hear Songbirds in Winter, Try a Little ‘Spishing’

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Illustration by Adelaide Tyrol

When nature calls, a birdwatcher should consider spishing in the woods. Nature calling, in this case, is the unmusical peeps, chips, tweets and whits of songbirds in winter. Lacking the imperative to breed, even our most melodious songbirds rarely sing when the days are brief and cold. Instead, they issue short “call notes,” mostly one- or two-syllable forms of communication. If you’d like to see or hear more birds this time of year, it helps to issue notes of your own.

A repeated, soft wispy “spshsh-spshsh-spshsh” is bird parlance for danger. A birder spishing is imitating the scolding or warning notes that some songbirds utter to alert others of a lurking predator. It’s a universal alarm call. So when you spish, songbirds often pop into view to investigate.

Consider the encounter I had during a recent winter bird count on Long Island. While bushwhacking through scrubby oak-pine woodlands, the only bird note I heard was the thin high tseep of a white-throated sparrow. The woods were otherwise silent. Vacant. But I suspected otherwise. So I stopped and spished.

Spshsh-spshsh-spshsh-spshsh. Psssp-psssp-psssp-psssp-psssp. Spshsh-spshsh-spshsh-spshsh.”

Two white-throated sparrows jumped into view from a tangle of catbrier. Then several more. An eastern towhee belted out a plucky reeEEP! I kept spishing. A northern cardinal emerged and uttered its short, bright peek note. Two hermit thrushes popped onto a white oak branch, flicked their wings and repeated a couple of soft chuck calls.

But the concert was only beginning.

I enhanced the ruse by adding the rolling whistle of an eastern screech owl. Soon the trees and brambles became alive with more birds: a red-bellied woodpecker, a half-dozen black-capped chickadees, several tufted titmouse, a winter wren, three more towhees, two brown thrashers, a gray catbird, a northern mockingbird and a few yellow-rumped warblers.

The owl call, combined with spishing, really grabbed their attention. The reason? Owls hunt songbirds by stealth. In silent, deadly flight they surprise their prey, closing the deal with a well-practiced grasp of the talons. Yet, the whistle of the screech owl actually attracts the other birds trying to determine the location of their predator. A songbird that might otherwise become owl food can avoid danger if it knows where the owl is perched.

Your best ally in this ruse to attract songbirds is the black-capped chickadee. The chickadee is often the first species to respond to spishing or to the whistle of the screech owl. Chickadees will issue a high-intensity zeeet call in response to a rapidly approaching predator, such as a hawk or owl in flight, or a dog or human walking into their territory. They will deliver the more familiar chick-a-dee-dee alerts in the presence of a stationary predator. Researchers have concluded that chickadees vary the rate or urgency of this call or add more dee notes to convey the distance or immediacy of the threat.

Chickadees approach the scene of perceived danger because they recognize strength and safety in numbers. They respond to your spishing with their warning calls, but then a mob of them will converge on a perched hawk or owl, scolding it with notes or even dive-bombing the raptor to harass it out of the territory. Other songbird species are likely to notice and join the commotion.

Incidentally, danger isn’t the only thing that gets birds calling. They call out during feeding and courtship. Night-flying songbirds call to keep the flock together in the dark. Some birds that herd together during breeding, such as gulls and gannets, use call notes to help mates keep track of each other.

You can try call notes on your own at home. Head outside into the snow, find a flock of black-capped chickadees and begin spishing. Be patient. It may take a few minutes to get the gang together. Approach slowly. Avoid sudden, jerky movement. The chickadee chatter will build, and soon a hairy woodpecker, white-breasted or red-breasted nuthatch, tufted titmouse or even a golden-crowned kinglet may join the mob.

As with any bird-questing technique, excessive spishing can become a form of harassment, so don’t overdo it—especially during the spring breeding season. Once the birds respond, lay off the spishing and enjoy the show.

Then invite the neighbors over to explain what you’ve been doing. That will dispel rumors that you’ve lost your marbles and are hissing at trees.

Discussion *

Jan 01, 2010

I grew up in a birding household and have gone on many birdwatching trips over 40+ years, and every one of the birders involved have used the term “pishing” rather than “spishing” to describe the sound we use to attract birds.

These folks are/were all from Connecticut; could it be we have a regionalism here? A Southern New England vs. Northern New England accent?

“Pish,” to my surprise, is actually in the dictionary, but the definition has nothing to do with birding: “[an interjection] used to express disdain or contempt.”

“Spish,” however, is a made-up word, surely devised for the purpose of attracting birds. It’s pure onomatopoeia: a word that sounds like the sound it’s describing.

Anyone know of other variations on this theme?

Carolyn Haley

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