The Avian Favor Competition with a Deeper Purpose
The annual bird competition serves as a welcome remedy to an ever more bleak news cycle, honoring Australia's extraordinary and distinctive native wildlife. But, it's also a contest of statistics.
Taking history as a indicator, more than 300,000 votes could be cast over nine days, beginning at 6am AEDT on 6 October, as people from across the globe vote for their favourite Australian bird species for 2025.
The victorious bird (assuming it is a bird that flies – likely, but not certain) will be honored together with previous winners: the Australian magpie, the black-throated finch, the superb fairy-wren and last year's winner, the swift parrot.
Australia has about 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 numerous reader nominations.
While you are considering how to vote, here are some other numbers to consider.
A growing number of bird species are not in a great way. The national authorities classifies 164 as endangered. According to the Australian Conservation Foundation, 11 birds have been included to the list since the previous bird of the year vote two years ago.
At least 22 species and subspecies have been pushed to extinction, mostly in the decades after European colonisation.
Most pressingly, there are 18 bird species listed as critically endangered, placing them a single step from lost. They include 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.
Hopefully that what to do to save them – and the roughly 2,000 other species and ecological communities considered at risk – will be at the heart of the government’s work to revise the national nature law later this year.
Why this is important, and what birds signify to people, has been the focus of a series of introductory stories, photos, videos and artwork in recent 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 received the least votes will be removed from the race. The last round of voting will occur on Tuesday the 14th, when just 10 birds will be left. 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 coming days will be a “joyous celebration of the birds that save us” and a “rallying cry for us to work harder to save them”.
It will also be plenty of fun. Now is the time to cast your vote.
