Google has blurred the face of a bullock pictured on its Street View mapping service. It’s since confirmed it was a blunder rather than some form of bovine witness protection.

As a standard policy, Google blurs out any human faces its cameras catch, simply because the law of averages means they are sure to picture somebody in a compromising situation or location.

However, journalist David Shariatmadari spotted a more unusual piece of blurring [pictured] while virtually exploring a riverside path in Cambridge in the United Kingdom. It appears the bullock had nothing to hide as its face was shown in full on a shot taken a few yards away.

Google’s press team were quick off the mark to respond, saying:

We thought you were pulling the udder one when we herd the moos, but it’s clear that our automatic face-blurring technology has been a little overzealous. Of course, we don’t begrudge this cow milking its five minutes of fame