A flock of fraudulent votes has marred day one of the Bird of the Year competition.

Someone out of Christchurch made over 100 fake email addresses to register 112 votes for the white-faced heron, a usually unpopular bird in the competition.

It's the second voter scandal in three years after the kokako received 200 fraudulent votes in 2015.

Bird of the Year coordinator Kimberley Collins said all the votes came from the same IP address in Christchurch but at the moment they don't have any leads.

"But what we do hope is that the person that made the vote actually makes a donation to ease their guilt."

Collins said people get fired up every year.

"As they should, our native birds are amazing they're threatened, people are passionate about protecting them, good on them I say, we;'re not mad that someone has hacked the system, we're actually impressed that they've gone to such lengths."

Unfortunately for the white-faced heron with the 112 votes taken away it's left with a paltry 30.