Tampa Audubon Society member Mary Keith contemplates the numerous chirps and whistles and tweets above her while strolling through the wooded area around Lettuce Lake Park Saturday morning during the annual Tampa area Christmas Bird Count. "I'm still better at identifying the birds by sight," said Keith modestly, although she estimates that she can correctly pick out about 100 birds by sound.
Mary told me that when they call to the birds, that's called "pishing" because the sound they make is pish pish pish. Ideally, the birds will come out to investigate the noise and show their colors. But sometimes, it has the opposite effect, and the birds go into hiding because they fear it may be a predator or because it simply "pished them off." That little laugh, some really strong coffee and seeing the sunrise in a some serene setting made the 5 a.m. wake-up call almost tolerable.
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