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The annual bird competition acts as a welcome remedy to an increasingly bleak news cycle, celebrating Australia's remarkable and unique native wildlife. However, it's additionally a numbers game.

Taking past results as a indicator, over 300,000 votes are expected to be cast over a nine-day period, starting at 6am AEDT on 6 October, as people from across the globe select their favourite Australian bird species for 2025.

The winning aviator (assuming it is a flying species – probable, but not guaranteed) will be honored alongside previous winners: the Australian magpie, the black-throated finch, the superb fairy-wren and last year's winner, 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 additional numbers to consider.

A growing number of bird species are not in a great way. The federal government classifies 164 as endangered. 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 already been driven to extinction, mostly in the decades after European colonisation.

Most urgently, there are 18 bird species listed as severely threatened, placing them just one step from lost. They encompass some regular contenders: 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 actions needed to save them – and the roughly 2,000 other species and ecological communities considered at risk – will be at the centre of the government’s work to revise the national nature law later this year.

Why this is important, and what birds mean to people, has been the central theme of a wave of introductory stories, photos, videos and artwork in recent 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 allocate to their preferred 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 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 key organizer 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 will also be plenty of fun. Time to get voting.