What bird sounds like a phone ringing?

A phone ringing from a tree, a wire or a rooftop with nobody around is most likely a Northern Mockingbird. It copies cell phones, car horns, warning bells and other man-made sounds, and it repeats each phrase three or more times before moving on. It lives year-round across most of the continental United States and sings through most of the year, sometimes all night. The other usual suspect is the European Starling, which can reproduce a phone ring or a car alarm in the middle of its squeaky, rambling song, in towns, suburbs and farm country across most of the continent.

Listen: the Northern Mockingbird

The mockingbird is the likeliest bird to send you looking for a phone. Tennessee's wildlife agency notes that besides dozens of other birds' songs, it imitates man-made devices, including musical instruments, warning bells, cell phones, car horns and creaky hinges, and a single male can carry as many as 200 song types. Texas Parks and Wildlife magazine told the story of a man in Lago Vista who heard the unmistakable chime of a cell phone in his backyard with nobody there to answer it, and finally caught a mockingbird making the sound. The same bird later added a pager beep. Others have picked up the back-up alarm of a garbage truck.

Mockingbirds are year-round residents across most of the continental United States. They like open ground with shrubs: parks, farmland and suburbs, especially yards with berry-bearing ornamental bushes and tangles of multiflora rose. In Texas the breeding season starts in mid-February, when males claim territories, and singing begins before dawn, eases off in the middle of the day and picks up again around sunset. Both males and females also sing in fall to hold feeding territories, so the phone can ring in October too.

The other phone mimic: the European Starling

BirdNote points out that starlings can duplicate a phone ring or a car alarm. They are especially good at whistled sounds, such as a Killdeer's call or a quail's whistle, and can even produce a convincing Red-tailed Hawk scream. The leading explanation is that a male who borrows sounds grows a bigger repertoire, and that makes him more attractive to females than the males around him. Audubon describes the song itself as a string of discordant, musical, squeaky and rasping notes, with perfect imitations of other birds dropped into the wheezing and sputtering. So a starling's phone ring arrives once, in the middle of a long, messy performance, and is gone.

Starlings were brought to North America in 1890 and now occupy most of the continent. They are most numerous in farm country, suburbs and cities, and they also use parks, open groves and fields, but they are usually scarce in big stretches of wild forest, scrub or desert. Southern birds stay all year, while many northern ones move south in fall, and in fall and winter they gather in immense flocks.

How to tell which one you heard

• Count the rings. A mockingbird gives its phone phrase three or more times, then jumps to something else entirely: a ring, a cardinal, a car horn, each in its own short burst. A starling's copy goes by once, wrapped in squeaks, rattles and wheezes.
• Listen for the signature note. Between songs, a starling gives a descending whee-ee whistle. A mockingbird scolds with an abrasive check.
• Check the clock. A ringing phone in the yard on a moonlit spring night points to a mockingbird, usually an unmated male still looking for a partner.
• Look at the setting. A shrubby yard, a hedge or a berry bush points to a mockingbird. A flock working a lawn or a farm field, especially in fall and winter, points to starlings.
• Wait for the next ring. A real phone repeats the same pattern until someone answers or it goes to voicemail. A bird moves on after a few rounds.

If what you heard was a single electronic chirp rather than a ring, the smoke alarm chirp page covers that one. And if the bird keeps going, Warble can listen and tell you whether the singer is a mockingbird or a starling, although a perfect impression may leave it, like you, waiting for the bird's own phrases.

Questions people ask

Warble is a game, not a field guide. Facts about birds on this page come from the sources above.