The driving birds

For the past two or three weeks I've been observing a couple of starlings. They moved into our neighbourhood this year and have made themselves quite comfortable in a tree near our house. However, they have taken over all the neighbouring gardens and use them as their feeding ground. Both birds are very lively and they always make sure that there's something worth observing.

I've seen numerous bird tricks: from stunt-birds (my doves and the crows) to stealing (the magpies) and drilling into tree-trunks (the pair of nuthatches). Until a few days ago I thought I had seen them all. But the two starlings had an amazing surprise prepared for me.

When I was watchig the couple mating in the tree behind our house, I also listened to the strange sounds they produced. I've read that starlings have the ability to immitate other birds. But what I was listening to was not bird-singing... I kept listening and then it hit me: the birds were driving a car! They must have listened to the cars driving along the road nearby. They started making a sequence of sounds (like a formula, speeding) followed by one long high tone (like tires, screeching)! And they kept repeating their "driving", too! In fact their "car-trip" lasted about four or five minutes! It was absolutely amazing! I just had to laugh, because it was exactly the same sound as produced by the cars on the road! Would you believe it!?