An Bird Popularity Competition with a Deeper Purpose
Bird of the Year serves as a refreshing antidote to an increasingly bleak news cycle, honoring Australia's extraordinary and unique native wildlife. But, it's additionally a contest of statistics.
Taking past results as a indicator, more than 300,000 votes are expected to be lodged over nine days, starting at 6am AEDT on 6 October, as participants from around the world vote for their preferred Australian bird species for 2025.
The winning bird (assuming it is a flying species – 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. Nearly half are absent 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 ponder.
A growing number of bird species are facing challenges. The federal government lists 164 as threatened. According to the Australian Conservation Foundation, 11 birds have been included 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 years after European colonisation.
Most pressingly, there are 18 bird species listed as severely threatened, placing them just one step from extinction. They encompass some regular contenders: the regent honeyeater, the far eastern curlew and the swift and orange-bellied parrots. They may shortly be accompanied 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 heart of the government’s work to overhaul the national nature law later this year.
Why this matters, and what birds signify to people, has been the focus of a series of introductory stories, photos, videos and artwork over the past three weeks. There’s plenty more to come.
But, for now, the number to concentrate on is: one.
Each day, everyone has a single vote to assign to their favourite bird that is still in the competition.
At the end of each day, the five birds that garnered the fewest votes will be removed from the race. The final round of voting will take place on Tuesday the 14th, when just 10 birds will remain. That voting ends at 6am on Wednesday the 15th.
The winner will be revealed in a online broadcast at midday the next day.
In the words of BirdLife Australia’s Sean Dooley – a driving force behind bird of the year – the coming days will be a “joyous celebration of the birds that save us” and a “call to action for us to work harder to save them”.
It should also be plenty of fun. Now is the time to cast your vote.
