THE much anticipated 2017 Australian Bird of the Year results are in and shockingly, the magpie has taken out the top spot ousting the early favourite the white ibis — aka the bin chicken.

Despite being tipped to win the Guardian Australia and Birdlife Australia competition, the ibis was pipped to the post by the swooping magpie which was named the winner at 7.45am today on ABC news breakfast.

“The bin chicken — the ibis — was leading when the poll went dark on The Guardian website,” Australian Birdlife magazine’s editor Sean Dooley said.

“Coming up close behind it was the magpie.

“It has been neck-and-neck in the home straight but the magpie has been the number one bird — the Bird of the Year is the Australian magpie.”

The Australian Magpie has been named the @BirdlifeOz 2017 #BirdOfTheYear! See the top 10 tally pic.twitter.com/bZBM9h0PuF — News Breakfast (@BreakfastNews) 10 December 2017

The magpie came in at number one with 19,926 votes, just edging out the bin juice-loving ibis at 19,083. There was a significant drop in votes from 2nd to 3rd place, with the laughing kookaburra gaining 10,953 votes.

The poll was open to the public on The Guardian’swebsite until December 9, with the bin chicken looking prepped to take out the top spot right until the final votes were tallied.

A significant number of Australians put their heart and soul into campaigning for the misunderstood ibis, so understandably a lot of people were not pleased with the result.

Some have compared the magpie’s win over the ibis to the great Australian Idol finale of 2003 when Shannon Noll was robbed of the title by Guy Sebastian.

Others have dubbed the unprecedented results as “Australia’s Trump moment” and even suggested that “Russian bots” were to blame.

Magpie this is certainly Australia's "trump moment" I blame you @firstdogonmoon for orchestrating it — Henry Cook (@Manic_Henry) 10 December 2017

Russian fake news bots made the magpie win — Jason Wilson (@jason_a_w) 10 December 2017

Sure, Australians chose marriage equality but they also chose the magpie--loathed even by the devil-- as their Bird of the Year, so can you really trust them? The answer is no. — well-mannered frivolity (@OmarjSakr) 10 December 2017

Not everyone felt that magpie’s win was unjust though, with many people celebrating the swooping bird’s new prestigious title.

AUSSIE MAGPIE WON! I AM SO HAPPY!

Well done little mates! #BirdoftheYear #magpies pic.twitter.com/dIsb02rFcJ — Catherine Cavallo 🌈 (@CavalloDelMare) 10 December 2017

I think what we are seeing with the Magpie swooping in for a #BirdOfTheYear win is a distrust of a nation-wide smear campaign against them. Plus I saw one open a Le Snack that they found in a bin once and that’s impressive. Well done Australia 🇦🇺 — 🎄Patrichristmas Lenton🎄 (@PatrickLenton) 10 December 2017

While the humble bin chicken may not have gotten the national recognition so many Aussies think it deserves, there is always next year. #binchicken2018