Some old favourites have fallen by the wayside, but it’s all to play for on Thursday as supporters of eliminated birds decide which finalist to back
The cassowary is long gone. So too the sulphur-crested cockatoo, the swift parrot, the shy albatross and the spotted pardalote.
No, there hasn’t been (another) mass extinction (yet) but the new voting format in the 2021 Guardian Australia/Birdlife Australia bird of the year poll means the competition has morphed into a brutal kind of ornithological Game of Thrones.