To Silence a Mockingbird

Honking horns, car alarms, noisy neighbors... it's all part of the urban white noise that keeps us awake. But what happens when nature encroaches upon our sonic space? The Daily News looks into the sex-crazed mockingbirds of NYC, whose mating calls are slowly driving locals insane. The population has gone up 10% in a year, not good news for those who describe the sound outside of their windows as "loud and shrill and grating."

The male mating calls mimic sounds they hear, so essentially you could be listening to a bird's interpretation of street noise. One Greenwich Village resident declared, "The bird has an amazing ability to imitate car alarms. He starts every night about 2 a.m." Skeptical? Watch this video of a mockingbird perfectly imitating a car alarm, over and over again.

And that's not all: the territorial birds have been known to attack! A professional dog walker from the Bronx told the paper she's got the fear in her after being attacked by one on 236th Street in Riverdale a year ago. It's all so Hitchcockian!