The humorously-named seabird – also known as the kawau in New Zealand and as the black cormorant in Australia – received a flood of votes on Wednesday night that organisers said was “potentially someone’s idea of a joke”.

In my hand I hold the scalp, Of the Kawau Tatakiha.

I devoted a few days of fine weather in the month of June to 187visiting these gold-fields; a projected visit to the copper-mines of Great Barrier Island, and the Island of Kawau, had unfortunately to be abandoned, owing to bad weather.

In 1872 he was given a pension of �1000 a year, and settled down on the island of Kawau, not far from Auckland, which he bought, and where he passed his leisure in planting, gardening and collecting books.

Patoune, an influential Maori chief, had been zealous in the unfathoming of the mystery, and mentioning that, Sir George Grey was led to say, 'Some time before his death Patoune rowed over from Auckland to my island at Kawau.