Weird News

New Zealand's Bird of the Year competition was flooded with votes for the shag. The animal received more than 300 "dubious" votes leading to the bird - which is a species of cormorant - to be given the coveted title.

The seabird's votes were all traced to a computer in Australia, all in one evening, which organisers dubbed as "potentially someone's idea of a joke".

The conservation group said: "Last night, we had 310 dubious votes for the shag from an IP address in Australia."

Forest & Bird New Zealand spokeswoman Caitlin Carew said they would make sure there would be no more suspicious voting.

She said: "Honestly, there are better ways to show your love for our native birds. And we're pretty confident nothing will get past our experts, so there's not much point trying."