The wait is over. The votes – all 313,000 of them – are in.
The winner of Guardian/BirdLife Australia’s Australian bird of the year for 2025 will be crowned on Thursday.
Bird lovers can tune into a live stream to hear the winner of the biennial poll on Thursday afternoon between 12.30pm and 1.30pm AEDT. The ceremony crowning the winner will be available on Guardian Australia’s website, YouTube, Instagram and TikTok.
Guardian Australia’s bird of the year live blog will also kick off coverage at 11.30am.
The poll closed at 6am on Wednesday. On the final day of voting, the tally board is hidden from public view.
The official top 10 vying for the bird of the year title – in order of their place in the poll on Monday – are:
Tawny frogmouth
Baudin’s black cockatoo
Gang-gang cockatoo
Willie wagtail
Bush stone-curlew
Southern emu-wren
Laughing kookaburra
Little penguin
Spotted pardalote
Wedge-tailed eagle
If history is anything to go by, there are often last-minute surprises for birds perched on the top of the tally board.
The crowd favourite, the tawny frogmouth, has landed in second place for the past three competitions. In the final stages of the 2023 competition, it also led the vote. But the swift parrot soared past it on the final day of voting – when the vote tally is hidden – to snatch the crown.
Baudin’s black cockatoo – a newcomer to the poll this year – roosted in second place on Monday. The dark-feathered, white-cheeked bird with a call like a squeaky gate is endemic to the Western Australia’s south-west. But conservationists fear the species is under greater pressure than ever due to planned expansions of bauxite mining in its native northern jarrah forests.
In third place on Monday was the gang-gang cockatoo – beloved for its distinctive call that sounds like a creaky door. It has placed third in the past two competitions.
This year it has been backed by Guardian Australia’s editor, Lenore Taylor, the independent senator David Pocock and Gardening Australia’s host, Costa Georgiadi.
For the first time ever this year, the magpie – the winner of the inaugural 2017 poll – was booted from the top 10.
This year’s champion will join the ranks of previous winners: the Australian magpie, the black-throated finch, the superb fairy-wren and the swift parrot.
