British police officers were baffled when a familiar bird started singing a new tune – the sound of a police siren.

Thames Valley Police officers caught the peculiar bird on camera making the noises outside a Roads Policing base in Bicester, Oxfordshire.

Footage of the encounter, posted by the force onto social media platform X on April 10, showed the bird chirping while perched on a nearby tree, before mimicking the police siren twice.

The police said the bird was a resident of the area and left officers “a little confused” after it learnt to imitate the sound of a police siren earlier in the week.

They added: “From our workshops that test out the two-tone tune to officers deploying to jobs, this little fella has been sat patiently observing the noise to recreate it!” referring to the bird.

The police also clarified that the 46-second video clip - which has since gained 251,000 views - was “100 per cent real” and not a belated April Fool’s joke, leaving netizens tickled and busy guessing the bird’s species.

One X user speculated that it was a starling, having owned one in the 80s which was able to mimic ambulance sirens.

Another thought it may have been a blackbird, a species known to be clever mimics who work the sounds they hear into their own songs.