Blackbird car alarm
Blackbirds are causing an unusual problem in England’s North Yorkshire town of Guisborough—they jolt people from their early morning slumber by mimicking car alarms.
“When the owners rush out to confront the thieves they often find a blackbird in mid-song,” reports The Times of London.
“It had the tone and pitch just right,” commented one local resident. “We’ll all be driven crackers.”
And there may be little respite.
As one bird passes a new song on to a neighbor, the sound can become a lot more common.
Actually, about 30 of Britain’s bird species are capable of mimicking other sounds.
The common starling is the most gifted of them all and can easily mimic the calls of other birds.
One was known to imitate the ring of a telephone so convincingly that it was impossible to tell the imitation from the real thing.
