trying to identify unusual bird call

[chateauColombier]

I am living in SW France and have a bird calling after sunset in a tall plane tree outside my window in town. It sounds like a faulty smoke alarm. The noise you get when the battery is low. Or a faulty car alarm but not as loud. We do have very small frogs in the garden that bury themselves in earth that make a similar high pitched call but this is coming from the tree. Does anyone know what it might be as it driving all the neighbours to distraction. Thanks.

[The Woodman]

Scops Owl?

[astarsdad]

Hi,

While at work one day, I heard an alarm going off some distance away and the sound being repeated quite close to me. I noticed a bird on a nearby building, it was grey in colour and too far away to distinguish anything else. I came to the conclusion it was an escaped african grey parrot mimmicking the sound of the alarm.

Terry

[thebeard]

Originally Posted by The Woodman

Scops Owl?

i'd agree with this, i heard some in southern spain last year and thought they were some sort of electrical device, as there was an electric boundary around the place i was staying to stop the dogs running away.

check this recording
XC26694 Common Scops-owl (Otus scops) | sound on xeno-canto/europe

[The Woodman]

Nice link, thebeard, thanks.

Interesting to see a sonogram of the distinctive call.

Once heard, never forgotten!

[SheffieldLass]

The other things that can make a loud electical sort of chirp at night in that area are crickets. They can sit out in trees.