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The annual bird competition acts as a welcome remedy to an increasingly grim news cycle, celebrating Australia's extraordinary and distinctive native wildlife. However, it's also a contest of statistics.

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

The winning aviator (assuming it is a bird that flies – likely, 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 has about 850 native bird species. Almost half are absent anywhere else on the planet. That total has been whittled down to 50 for this year’s voting, based in part on numerous 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 national authorities classifies 164 as threatened. 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 already been driven to extinction, mostly in the years after European colonisation.

Most pressingly, there are 18 bird species listed 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 accompanied 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 signify to people, has already been the focus of a wave of scene-setting 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 preferred bird that is still in the competition.

At the end of each day, the five birds that garnered the fewest votes will be eliminated from the race. The last 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 announced 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 next week-and-a-bit will be a “joyous celebration of the birds that save us” and a “call to action for us to work harder to save them”.

It will also be plenty of fun. Time to get voting.