BIRDSONG is one of the best known —and best loved—aspects of the natural world. Many of us love listening to the dawn chorus, the songsters in our garden or the birds we hear on walks in the countryside. Yet not all birdsong is what it seems. Some birds deliberately mimic the songs of other, totally different species and a few are able to imitate human sounds. Many people have been confused—and sometimes infuriated—by what sounds uncannily like a car alarm going off in the street outside their home or the ringing of a telephone. Sometimes, it takes them days or even weeks to discover the culprit: the common, but sonically talented, starling.
Across the world, other species have