A bird knocked out electricity on most of the Halifax peninsula and some surrounding areas after coming into contact with electrical equipment on Friday morning.

About 20,000 Nova Scotia Power customers lost power just before 11 a.m.

Nova Scotia Power spokesperson David Rhodenizer said the bird contacted equipment at the Kempt Road substation, which triggered the power grid's system protection, causing the outage.

Most of the customers affected by the outage had power back on by noon.

Rhodenizer said he didn't know what species of bird caused the outage.

Asked whether the bird survived, he said, "My suspicion would be no. There's a lot of voltage there."

He later confirmed the bird died.

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