There's a new noise welling up from Omaha's urban landscape. Cacophonous foghorns have been blistering the symphony of the downtown's natural sound.

The Foghorns are poised on the First National Bank building to keep the area birds from making deposits.

The bank hopes to chase the birds away without shooing the nearby people along with them.

Clyde McNeal first heard the horn section sound off at 11 o'clock Sunday night.

"It sounded like a boat coming through here," he says.

Then Mr. McNeal heard the horns again at 1 a.m. and 1:15 and 1:30 and Mr. McNeal wasn't happy.

The good news for Clyde and many of his downtown neighbors is that First National says it won't blow the horn overnight anymore. But it will keep trying to chase the birds off the tower.

First National Building President Brenda Dooley says, "It is annoying. It's not our intention to disturb people who live downtown. So we're continuing to evaluate how the usage could be scaled back and other tactics that could be used."

Some of those other tactics are already being employed. Long ropes with yellow caution tape hang from the tower. Decoy owls are positioned to scare away the birds while tape recorded sounds of predators attacking fill the air.

Clyde has been watching from his top floor window across the street and says whatever they're doing, it is working.

"I can actually see a difference," he says. "Compared to the thousands of birds, it's now maybe 20."

The birds have not only been fouling the sidewalks. They've also been taking a toll on the building itself.

Ms. Dooley says, "If you look up, you can see the windows… We've been up there multiple times addressing the windows."

If all of this fails to chase the birds away, the next step will be putting a sticky material on every horizontal ledge on the building. The starlings that have been swarming don't like landing on sticky substances.

First National has already spent thousands of dollars trying to get rid of the birds. The fight wears on.