Pishing. Some birds will make a warning call known as a “pish.” Making that call yourself—if you do it correctly and have a bit of luck—can make flocks of tiny, hard to spot birds come close to you as they try to figure out what some ‘hidden bird’ is warning everyone about.

If you’re a bird watcher wanting to spot them this is super exciting! And if it’s in an isolated area or somewhere not many other birders visit it’s not super stressful to the birds. The problem comes with places like Central Park that are bird watching meccas, and suddenly a patch of woods might have dozens of people doing that in the span of a few hours. Repeated or prolonged pishing can stress birds out the same way that playing recorded bird song at them for hours can stress them out, because it makes them think there’s an unseen threat to confront.

To me it’s just disrespectful to the wildlife. They’re not there to be your toys or to fill out your IRL pokedex, and stressing them out because you want a better look is edging into unethical territory.