The Channel Nine news team had to keep their wits about them this week when a super sized image of a seagull gate-crashed the live set of the six o’clock news segment.

In a bizarre scene, a massively magnified version of the bird walked in front of a real-time projection of the Melbourne cityscape, directly behind news anchor Peter Hitchener.

At the time, the ever-professional news journalist was reading a story about a 27-year-old murder, and had to keep his wits about him due to the sensitivity of the report.

Rather than chuckling with laughter, like the majority of the news set did at the time, Hitchener remained calm, only mildly flinching in response to the rare occurrence.

Speaking out publicly yesterday, Hitchener said that he had to control his urges after seeing the main cameraman turn his head away from the set to hide his laughter.

“I was reading away, and it was a serious story, and I suddenly thought, ‘Oh my gosh that seagulls back again’, because we had bit of a problem last night,” Hitchener said.

“About 50 seconds to 6 o’clock this seagull arrived and started pecking at the camera and it had the beadiest huge eyes you’ve ever seen in your life.”

The incident comes only days after another TV news journalist made the headlines for an incident which occurred during a live segment.

ABC news presenter, Virginia Trioli, was forced to apologize to a Coalition senator, and viewers, after she was caught on air pulling a face and twirling a finger in the traditional manner of calling someone crazy.

WHAT’S YOUR OPINION?

Have you ever seen any other moments like these in Australian TV history?

Were you impressed with Hitchener’s professionalism?

Would it have been inappropriate to laugh during the incident?