What bird sounds like a smoke alarm chirp?

First rule out the alarm itself: a single chirp every 30 or 60 seconds means a smoke alarm battery is low. If the beeping is outside at night, a likely bird is the Northern Saw-whet Owl, a tiny forest owl whose long, monotonous run of toots reminds people of a truck backing up, heard especially in spring in the conifer woods of the northern states and the western mountains. A beep from a yard, a wire or a telephone pole that soon turns into other sounds is more likely a Northern Mockingbird, which copies pager beeps, cell phones and back-up alarms.

Listen: the Northern Saw-whet Owl

The saw-whet is the bird that gets people out of bed. BirdNote tells of a man who lay awake most of a night convinced his neighbor was backing up a big truck, again and again, until the neighbor suggested the real source was a Saw-whet Owl. The male's advertising call is an even, unchanging series of whistled toots, and Audubon notes that late at night in the breeding season he can keep it up for hours with hardly a pause, singing almost nonstop early in the season to hold a territory and attract a mate. To human ears it is repetitive to a fault, which is exactly why it sounds electronic. The name comes from a different comparison: early settlers thought of a saw being sharpened on a whetstone.

Saw-whets are common in forests across southern Canada and the northern United States. They breed mostly in conifers, in open pine forest, spruce and fir, and white cedar swamps, and in some places in oak woodland or streamside groves in dry country. Some stay on their breeding grounds all year, others head south in autumn, gathering in large numbers around the Great Lakes, and some birds in the western mountains simply move downhill. In winter they look for dense cover, especially groves of conifers. Outside the breeding season they are usually quiet, although fall birds have other calls, including a skew and a twittering call punctuated by a snap of the bill. At under three ounces, this is one of the smallest owls in North America.

The mimic: a mockingbird with a beep in its playlist

We found no source documenting a mockingbird copying a smoke detector specifically, but mockingbirds copy plenty of electronics. Texas Parks and Wildlife magazine reported on a Lago Vista man who was refilling his feeders when he heard a cell phone ring with nobody nearby, then a second one, and watched a mockingbird fly up to a telephone pole. The same bird later produced a pager's beep. The article lists other borrowed sounds too: the back-up alarm on a garbage truck, car alarms, whining dogs, croaking frogs and chirping crickets. A male's repertoire can top 150 calls, and a few birds have been documented with as many as 203 song types.

In Texas, mockingbirds live in every part of the state in summer and winter, in towns and in open country alike. The breeding season opens in mid-February as males claim territories. They start singing well before dawn, slack off during the day and pick up again at sunset, and unmated males keep going through the night. So a mockingbird with a beep in its repertoire can be at it at 3 a.m. as well.

How to tell an owl, a mockingbird and a dying battery apart

• Inside or outside. Walk from room to room. If the sound is loudest under one detector, it is the battery. A chirp that continues after a fresh battery means the alarm has reached the end of its life and needs replacing.
• The rhythm. A low battery gives one chirp every 30 or 60 seconds. A saw-whet gives a long, steady run of toots that can go on for hours. A mockingbird gives a short burst of its beep, then moves on to something else.
• The time. A saw-whet's tooting is a late-night sound of the breeding season. A mockingbird sings most before dawn and around sunset, and only unmated males keep it up after dark.
• The place. Conifer woods or a wooded lot in the North or the western mountains point to the owl. A yard, a wire or a telephone pole in town or on a farm points to a mockingbird.
• Three loud beeps are different. A continued set of three loud beeps means the alarm has detected smoke or fire. Get out, call 911 and stay out.

If what you heard was a ring rather than a beep, see the phone ringing page. If it is the owl, a recording through an open window is enough for Warble to try to name it, though a faint toot from far back in the woods may leave it unsure.

Questions people ask

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