Blackbird Mimics Police Siren

A UK police inspector has told the BBC how he was the first to be tricked by a bird mimicking the sound of a siren. 

 

Simon Hills said the two-tone impression had officers believing a car was faulty at Thames Valley Police's Bicester station in Oxfordshire. 

 

But following investigations, the culprit was found to be a bird. 

 

In fact, the common blackbird (Scientific name: Turdus merula) shows a capacity for mimicking not just other birds, but even those sounds created by humans and our technology. There are a multitude of well-documented cases of imitation and incorporation of sounds ranging from human whistling to car alarms.

 

 

 

Phil Bruss, from Berkshire, Buckinghamshire & Oxfordshire Wildlife Trust said the male blackbird was making the noise to both attract a mate as well as warn other males away from its territory.

 

Hills, from the roads policing unit, said: "I sat at my desk after a weekend off and in the distance I could hear the faint sound of what sounded like a police siren and, because we repair a lot of police cars here, I thought it was maybe one that was defective and the battery was starting to go flat. I came outside and looked up into the trees and I could see the bird up in the trees, clearly mimicking the sirens in a really professional way". 

 

When asked whether the "jailbird" should be arrested for impersonating a police car, Hills said: "If it starts to put a uniform on and use some of its policing powers then we might have to look at it".

 

Other followers on X, replied asking if the bird was part of "special branch" or the "flying squad".

 

😂😂