Pishing, the process wherein birders make strange noises in an effort to attract birds, is a widely known and used birding tactic. Pete Dunne has written a short book about it (The Art of Pishing: how to attract birds by mimicking their calls), and the online encyclopedia Wikipedia even has an entry about it (see Pish).
I pish frequently, but seldom during normal birding do I pish unless I am already hearing birds nearby. This only makes good sense - pishing is designed to incite a mobbing response by birds, and the chance of that happening is much increased if you hear birds nearby, especially if those birds are chickadees or titmice. I can hardly walk by a calling parid (chickadee/titmouse family member) without pishing.
If I’m not hearing birds, I move on until I do, then start pishing. There is one exception to this rule, and that is when I’m looking for landbirds after mid-morning. General birding patterns dictate you bird for landbirds in the morning, then either call it a day or go looking for ducks, shorebirds or hawks, assuming appropriate habitat is available nearby.
However, if circumstances force you to look for landbirds during the quiet late morning or afternoon hours, it behooves you to try random opportunistic pishing - let’s call it ROP for short. ROP is all about stirring up action out of thin air.
If I’m traveling to a destination I seldom get to bird, I’m going to bird all day, every day of my trip to maximize my chances of finding all the local species, and sometimes the only birding at hand is in landbird habitat in the heat of the day. This is a circumstance built for ROP. I’ve garnered many a life landbird in far-away states through pure persistence - Rufous-winged Sparrow in the desert near Tuscon, Arizona at 2:00 in the afternoon, for example.
Keep the following in mind when trying ROP:
1. It is not really random. You still need to pick good looking habitat, and position yourself or your group well - ideally in the shade, close to vegetation that breaks up your outline, but still where you can see well.
2. If any are around, the birds are obviously inactive (because you’re not seeing or hearing them). This means launching a couple half-hearted pishes won’t get you far. ROP demands a minimum of 5 minutes of steady pishing. If after that time you get any response at all, even just a call note, keep going.
3. Pull out the stops with ROP - after pishing normally for a bit, try loud Barred Owl or Great-horned Owl calls, or squeaking just as loud as you can. In the west, the number one pishing noise is an imitation of a Pygmy Owl - try doing this for five minutes straight. If you are after a particular target species and can do any sort of an imitation of the bird at all, try it. I often am startled how my crummy White-crowned Sparrow or Louisiana Waterthrush whistles can stir a response.
4. If an ROP stop doesn’t bring results, or even if it does, be sure to move a good distance away before trying it again - any birds in the immediate area surely heard you, and are not likely to respond. You’re best off trying your hand at a new spot.