A magpie is being blamed for this morning’s power outage that affected parts of Inverell.

Essential Energy crews responded quickly to the unplanned outage earlier today with the electricity network protection equipment automatically switching power off to 2,349 homes and businesses for safety just after 5:15am.

Crews commenced a patrol of the electricity network and identified a magpie had impacted the high voltage network in Brissett Street.

Power was restored to all customers at 6.16am.

Essential Energy thanked customers for their patience as crews worked to restore power as quickly and safely as possible.