Winner of the Australian bird of the year 2025 to be announced on Guardian live stream | Australian bird of the year 2025

The wait is over. The votes – numbering 313,000 – are in.

The winner of the Guardian/BirdLife Australia 2025 Australian Bird of the Year award will be crowned on Thursday.

Bird lovers can tune in to a live stream to hear the winner of the biennial poll on Thursday afternoon between 12:30 p.m. and 1:30 p.m. AEDT. The ceremony crowning the winner will be available on the Guardian Australia website, YouTube, Instagram and TikTok.

Guardian Australia’s Bird of the Year live blog will also begin coverage at 11:30am.

Voting ended at 6 a.m. Wednesday. On the last day of voting, the scoreboard is hidden from public view.

The official top 10 in the running for bird of the year – in order of place in Monday’s poll – are:

1. Tawny Frog Mouth

2. Baudin’s black cockatoo

3. Cockatoo gang-gang

4. Willie Wagtail

5. Curlew

6. Southern Emu Wren

7. Laughing Kookaburra

8. Little penguin

9. Spotted Pardalote

10. Wedge-tailed eagle

If history is to be believed, there are often last-minute surprises for the birds perched atop the big board.

The crowd favorite, the tawny frogmouth, has taken second place in the last three competitions. During the final stages of the 2023 competition, he also led the voting. But the speedy parrot overtook him on the final day of voting – when vote counts are hidden – to capture the crown.

Baudin’s black cockatoo – new arrival this year – landed in second position on Monday. This dark-feathered, white-cheeked bird with a call similar to that of a creaking door is endemic to the south-west of Western Australia. But conservationists fear the species is coming under greater pressure than ever due to the planned expansion of bauxite mining into its native forests in northern Jarrah.

In third place on Monday was the gang-gang cockatoo – beloved for its distinctive cry that sounds like a creaking door. He placed third in the last two competitions.

This year he was supported by Guardian Australia editor Lenore Taylor, independent senator David Pocock and Gardening Australia host Costa Georgiadi.

For the first time this year, the magpie, winner of the first poll of 2017, was excluded from the top 10.

This year’s champion will join the ranks of previous winners: the Australian Magpie, Black-throated Finch, Magnificent Wren and Swift Parrot.