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Australian bird of the year poll 2021

From lorikeets that keep us company in lockdown to endangered swift parrots, Australia has a wealth of birdlife. Vote for your favourite in the 2021 Guardian/BirdLife Australia poll

Fifty birds. Two weeks. Only one winner.

The Australian bird of the year 2021 is the...

Superb fairywren

Here is a reminder of the voting mechanism we employed from the start:

The voting system in 2021 has changed. The competition kicks off on Monday 27 September with a lineup of 50 Australian native birds. The bottom five birds are eliminated at the end of each weekday, with everyone able to vote again in the next round each day. So on Tuesday, you can vote again on the 45 most popular birds from Monday and so on. You have one vote each day, but it doesn't have to go to the same bird. Eliminations will be paused over the weekend when the vote count will be hidden. Voting will go dark on Thursday 7 October for the final 10 birds and voting will close at midnight. All votes from the early rounds are discarded before the final count. The winning bird will be the one that receives the most votes in a simple poll of the final 10 on Thursday 7 October. The winner is announced on Friday 8 October. What will your strategy be? Will you vote for your favourite bird every day or for more underrated birds in the early rounds to keep them in the competition?

Download the Australian bird of the year 2021 poster as PDF here or JPEG here