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Bird of the Year acts as a refreshing antidote to an ever more bleak news cycle, honoring Australia's extraordinary and distinctive native wildlife. But, it's also a numbers game.

Taking history as a guide, over 300,000 votes could be lodged 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 winning aviator (assuming it is a flying species – probable, but not guaranteed) will be elevated together with prior 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 total has been narrowed 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 not in a great way. The federal government lists 164 as threatened. According to the Australian Conservation Foundation, 11 birds have been added 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 severely threatened, placing them just one 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 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 centre of the government’s work to overhaul the national nature law in the coming months.

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 focus on is: one.

Each day, everyone has a single vote to assign to their favourite bird that remains in the competition.

At the end of each day, the five birds that garnered the least votes will be eliminated from the race. The final round of voting will take place on Tuesday the 14th, when only 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 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 “happy celebration of the birds that save us” and a “rallying cry for us to work harder to save them”.

It should also be highly enjoyable. Time to get voting.