Kiwi probe dumps blame on duck

The duck would have spent all day without relieving herself

A female duck relieving herself from a great height, is being blamed for New Zealand's so-called '"brown cloud" mystery.

Scientists have been conducting a month long investigation into why a house in Wellington was splattered with a brown, foul smelling substance.

The owners of the house had blamed a passing aircraft for dumping the contents of its toilet on their home.

But the head of the investigation team, Dr Murray Williams, a water fowl biologist, put it down to the over eating of a single female duck, before she spent a day sitting on her nest.

"She will not have relieved herself for several hours, anything up to 12 hours," he said.

He described the material as very liquid, and said that delivered by a high flying duck on a windy day, it would spread very widely.

"It's incredibly smelly. It's evil," he said.

Dr Williams said there were often complaints at this time of year, but people would just have to put up with it.

"Count ourselves lucky that cows can't fly," he said.