Date: Tue, 21 Oct 2008 15:47:20 -0400
Reply-To: jbaum79@AOL.COM
Sender: Georgia Birders Online <GABO-L@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
From: Jason Baumgardner <jbaum79@AOL.COM>
Subject: I called in a rat (correction)
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed
The first time I sent this, it had the question marks in it - I hope
this fixes it.
I took a walk down the nature path behind my office at lunch today to
see what I could find, and I decided it would be a good time to
practice my pishing and see what might pop out. I had taken Pete
Dunne's class on "The Art of Pishing" recently at the Coastal Birding
Festival held at Jekyll Island, and I have been working on new
techniques that I learned to improve my pishing. I spied a pair of
song sparrows below me by the little wet-weather pond. After watching
them a moment I did a little standard pishing, and one immediately came
right to me. I pished some more and the other one came out eye level
with me, off to my left. Then I thought I'd try the really cool thing
I learned in the class, which is the high pitched squealing and other
variations you can make by "kissing" the back of your hand. I have
been fascinated by this and have been getting better at making the
right sounds (evidently I have good dexterity in my lips). Anyway, as
soon as I hit a good note, a little wren appeared a few feet from my
face. I believe it was a house wren. I kept going, and none other
than a great big RAT came out of the bushes and came right up to my
feet! It was so big, it looked like some kind of pet rat, but I don't
know. Mr. Dunne had warned that this technique could call in all sorts
of animals, including coyotes, but he hadn't mentioned rats. Amazing.
Incidentally, the towhees became very vocal when I did this, but they
did not come to me.
Jason Baumgardner
Roswell
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