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Bird of the Year serves as a welcome antidote to an increasingly grim news cycle, celebrating Australia's extraordinary and distinctive native wildlife. But, it's additionally a numbers game.

Taking history as a indicator, more than 300,000 votes could be lodged over nine days, starting at 6am AEDT on 6 October, as people from across the globe select their favourite Australian bird species for 2025.

The winning bird (assuming it is a bird that flies – probable, but not certain) will be elevated alongside previous winners: the Australian magpie, the black-throated finch, the superb fairy-wren and 2023’s champion, the swift parrot.

Australia has about 850 native bird species. Almost half are absent anywhere else on the planet. That number has been narrowed to 50 for this year’s voting, partly based on numerous reader nominations.

While you are considering 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 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 already been driven to extinction, mostly in the decades after European colonisation.

Most urgently, there are 18 bird species classified as severely threatened, placing them a single step from extinction. They encompass some regular contenders: the regent honeyeater, the far eastern curlew and the swift and orange-bellied parrots. They may soon be joined by others, such as Baudin’s black cockatoo.

It is hoped that what to do 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 overhaul the national nature law later this year.

Why this matters, and what birds mean to people, has already been the focus of a wave 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 remains in the competition.

At the end of each day, the five birds that garnered the fewest votes will be eliminated from the race. The final round of voting will occur on Tuesday the 14th, when only 10 birds will be left. That voting ends 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 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 plenty of fun. Time to get voting.