not really American dialect?

[Tom Kysilko]

At 01:52 PM 7/2/2001 -0400, George Thompson wrote:
...
>Birdwatchers, by the way, sometimes call small birds from the trees by
>either smooching or pssing.  I've never had much success with it
>myself, but have seen it done.  Birds who are hiding in the foliage
>will come out onto branches where they are more easily seen, evidently
>to check out the source of the noise.  The pssing is supposed to be
>done very loudly, much more so than when conversing with a cat.

The term I've learned (from Audoboners) for this practice is "pishing".
Like George, I've never gotten the hang of it.  My own experience is that
smooching (by which I suppose is meant a very tight bilabial or
labio-dental sucking) doesn't work on birds.

  Tom Kysilko        Practical Data Services
  pds at visi.com       Saint Paul MN USA