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The annual bird competition acts as a refreshing remedy to an ever more bleak news cycle, celebrating Australia's remarkable and unique native wildlife. However, it's also a contest of statistics.

Using past results as a indicator, more than 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 favourite Australian bird species for 2025.

The winning bird (assuming it is a flying species – probable, but not guaranteed) will be honored together with prior 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, partly based on thousands of 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 lists 164 as endangered. 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, primarily in the years after European colonisation.

Most urgently, there are 18 bird species listed as severely threatened, placing them just one step from lost. They include some regular contenders: the regent honeyeater, the far eastern curlew and the swift and orange-bellied parrots. They may soon be accompanied by others, such as Baudin’s black cockatoo.

Hopefully that actions needed to save them – and the approximately 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 matters, and what birds signify to people, has already been the focus of a series 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 focus 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 received 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 revealed in a live stream at midday the next 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 “joyous celebration of the birds that save us” and a “rallying cry for us to work harder to save them”.

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