Alarm Bird

[Roscoe]

The house next door has a house alarm. It beeps once when they arm the alarm and twice when they disarm it.

One of the birds living nearby imitates the alarm and it sounds quite realistic. We call it the alarm bird. It sounds three or four times a day and even if I know that the neighbours are not at home, it is easy to be fooled into thinking that they are either arriving or departing.

Although I have not heard it myself, I have heard tales of birds imitating the ring of the telephone. Perhaps it's the same type of bird?

Any idea what type of bird can imitate the sound of the house alarm? I'd be interested to know.

[Jayess64]

Possibly a tui? They are known to mimic sounds.

[CliveM]

Yes it will be a Tui. Well known for that behaviour.

[piroska]

I watched an Attenborough program once, somewhere in the jungles.....and a bird he called the Factory Bird.
I don't remember what is was, but it imitated everything, chainsaws, trucks, sawmills....all sorts.

The racket it could produce..hence the nickname.

magpies are good at imitating too.

[zqwerty]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mSB71jNq-yQ

[piroska]

Nope. Not that one.
It was in some jungle, it did a whole heap of ongoing noises, hence factory....and my god was it loud.

[prefect]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mSB71jNq-yQ

Beyond cool lol.

[piroska]

Yes, neat bird. The one I saw may have been new Guinea, they went with various local people in the doco. Approaching they hear this "factory", hence the name....Was a long time ago, maybe not Attenborough, but he has done a heap of those docos....

[Bozo]

During the NSW bushfires this year, some of the magpies heard the sounds of sirens so often they mimicked them too - pretty cool but also sad that the poor bastards heard so many sirens they thought it was something to copy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zHzs-mlDXMY