Bird of the Year acts as a refreshing antidote to an increasingly grim news cycle, honoring Australia's remarkable and unique native wildlife. However, it's also a numbers game.
Using past results as a indicator, over 300,000 votes are expected to be lodged over a nine-day period, starting at 6am AEDT on 6 October, as people from across the globe vote for their preferred Australian bird species for 2025.
The victorious bird (assuming it is a bird that flies – probable, but not certain) will be honored together with previous winners: the Australian magpie, the black-throated finch, the superb fairy-wren and 2023’s champion, the swift parrot.
Australia boasts approximately 850 native bird species. Almost half are not found anywhere else on the planet. That number has been whittled down to 50 for this year’s voting, based in part on thousands of reader nominations.
While you are thinking about how to vote, here are some other numbers to consider.
A increasing number of bird species are facing challenges. The federal government lists 164 as threatened. According to the Australian Conservation Foundation, 11 birds have been added to the list since the last bird of the year vote two years ago.
At least 22 species and subspecies have already been driven to extinction, mostly in the decades after European colonisation.
Most urgently, there are 18 bird species listed as critically endangered, placing them a single step from extinction. They encompass some bird-of-the-year perennials: the regent honeyeater, the far eastern curlew and the swift and orange-bellied parrots. They may shortly be joined by others, such as Baudin’s black cockatoo.
It is hoped that what to do to save them – and the roughly 2,000 other species and ecological communities deemed at risk – will be at the centre of the government’s work to overhaul the national nature law in the coming months.
Why this is important, and what birds signify to people, has already been the focus of a wave of scene-setting stories, photos, videos and artwork over the past three weeks. There’s much more to come.
But, for now, the number to concentrate on is: one.
Each day, everyone has a single vote to assign to their preferred bird that remains in the competition.
At the end of each day, the five birds that garnered the fewest votes will be eliminated from the race. The last round of voting will occur on Tuesday the 14th, when only 10 birds will remain. That voting closes at 6am on Wednesday the 15th.
The winner will be announced in a live stream at midday the following day.
In the words of BirdLife Australia’s Sean Dooley – a key organizer behind bird of the year – the next week-and-a-bit will be a “happy celebration of the birds that save us” and a “call to action for us to work harder to save them”.
It will also be highly enjoyable. Now is the time to cast your vote.
