Date: 9/19/26 11:42 am From: Chuq Von Rospach via Tweeters <tweeters...> Subject: Re: [Tweeters] "Pish" rarities app
On Sep 19, 2026 at 11:16:36, Gary Bletsch via Tweeters <
<tweeters...> wrote:
> As several Tweeters have recently reported, the new app "Pish" is supposed
> to notify birders about rarities. I just tried it out, but was not at all
> impressed.
>
I fired up Pish when it was first announced and it’s earned a place on my
phone. It’s not perfect, but it’s a nice and solid 1.0 release.
Unlike Gary, I didn’t have any issues signing in. The biggest issue I’ve
seen so far is it has a tendency to forget my settings, and reset the
search list to everything. An easy and quick fix when I fire it up, but
still a bit annoying.
(Note on using a yahoo.com email: as someone who used to run large scale
email systems for a living, I’d strongly encourage people to migrate their
email address to something else. Investment/maintenance of Yahoo stuff Is
minimal these days, and I’m honestly surprised they haven’t retired the
system already)
What really makes me suspicious of Pish is that the next closest rarity on
> its map of my region is an Ivory-billed Woodpecker, reported from some
> place up north of Toronto.
>
This is not a Pish problem, it’s an eBird thing. A couple of days after I
fired up Pish, I started getting REALLY funky rarity reports from it; it
turned out someone decided to visit the Tacoma Zoo and eBird list every
thing they saw at the zoo that day. Those sorts of things happen and I
sympathize with eBird reviewers that get to sort it out.
The thing Pish solves for me is something I’ve wanted eBird to do forever:
let me drop a pin somewhere and only get rare bird alerts within a range
from that point. Where I live here in Kitsap, if I want to monitor rarities
within about an hour’s drive, I need alerts set up for five different
counties, and those will include locations 3-4 hours away. Pish solves that
and does so pretty well. So far, where I’ve checked on it, it’s reported
everything I expect it to, and it hasn’t neglected to report something to
me, so it seems accurate.
I haven’t used some of the secondary features (like loading in my lifer
list), so I can’t comment on that. I’d be just as happy if they did away
with those and focus on refining and improving the core feature. It’s good
— I’d give it a B grade as a first release, and I think it has potential,
and so far, it’s been a useful addition to my phone.
chuq
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Chuq Von Rospach (http://www.chuq.me)
Silverdale, Washington
Birder, Nature and Wildlife Photographer
Vice President, Kitsap Audubon Society
