Mockingbird Imitates Car Alarm Perfectly

March 14, 2001 | Issue 37•09

HOUSTON–In an unsettling development for the natural world, a mockingbird was heard perfectly mimicking a car alarm Monday. "I heard this strange song coming from a mockingbird in a big spruce across the street from St. Luke's Hospital," bird watcher Bob Ausmus said. "After a minute or two, I realized it was one of those multi-sound car alarms–he did the staccato one, the slowly rising one, the buzzing one. He must have picked it up from one of the BMWs in the parking lot." Ornithologists predict that the alarm song will spread to millions of birds and be handed down for centuries to come.