Wednesday, April 09, 2008

Car alarm birds

It's that time of year again. Over the past few days, I've been hearing the mockingbirds in our neighborhood singing one of their favorite "songs": the "car alarm" song.

The first time I heard this, about 8 years ago, I couldn't quite believe what I was hearing. But it was that distinctive car alarm sound (WHEE-oop, WHEE-oop, WHEE-oop, breep, breep, breep, breep, BRAWK, BRAWK, BRAWK, BRAWK, oooEE, oooEE, oooEE). Ok, so maybe I didn't make it really clear in my description of the sound, but I think you know the one I'm talking about.

There are at least two, probably more, mockingbirds near my house who have been going through this song lately. I maintain hope that I'll be able to catch one of them in the act, and record it for posterity, and for the amusement of those who don't live near a car alarm bird. Maybe it would be even better to get it on video, but the birds are just shy enough that they always wind up flying away before I can get the camera ready.


On an only marginally related note, Brooklyn has not only mockingbirds that sing the car alarm song, but also a colony of parrots that live in the (urban) wild.

1 comment:

Medicoglia, RN said...

I know EXACTLY what car alram you are describing! You did that very well actually. lol

There are two colonies of wild parrots living in San Francisco as well. Here is a story about one of them... http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/01/08/sunday/main1185614.shtml