Two weeks ago the Australian Bird of The Year poll took flight and my nails are now bitten down to the quick.
Yes, I know, it doesn't take much to keep some people on the edge of their seat. I get nervy waiting for a library book on hold.
The annual BirdLife Australia poll started on September 27 with a line-up of 50 Australian native birds to vote for.
Each day the five birds with the least votes get wiped off the list. If your bird is wiped out, you can vote again the next day from the list of remaining ones.
Yesterday, Thursday, October 7, we were down to the final 10, and voting closed at midnight with the winner being announced at noon today.
Now some people vote for their favourite bird every day because they see themselves as dogged and loyal. They hope their bird will one day step into the national spotlight, and that everyone will finally see how beautiful and glorious their dull little avian has been all along. A bit like Melbourne Football Club, or National Party voters.
In 2019 the voting system changed from a first past the post system, to a runoff vote where 10 birds go into the final round. That actually created a bit more excitement because people could now vote more than once by picking another favourite.
I've enjoyed the new system because now I can chop and change my vote; and anyway, I have always liked to vote for the forgotten birds such as the wood duck, the bell miner or the bittern.
Show-offs such as the king parrot, the wedge-tailed eagle and the rainbow lorikeet get enough air time.
However, this year these glamour-huggers have already been discarded and we are now down to the final 10 — the superb fairywren, regent honeyeater, gang-gang cockatoo, bush turkey, tawny frogmouth, peregrine falcon, kookaburra, galah, magpie and the very show-off Gouldian finch.
In the end, my final vote was a toss-up between the magpie and the kookaburra.
We have a family of kookaburras that visits our garden and sits on the fence looking for frogs and snails. It's an iconic Aussie — and they eat snakes.
But in the end it had to be the magpie.
The song of the magpie is the sound of Australia. It's the sound you want to hear when you're 12,000 miles away and homesick — a larrikin gurgle of pride and arrogance all mixed up with a trumpet of joy. Every day, three or four magpies come to steal my dog's food, and they sing before they steal anything, not afterwards.
I watch them from my kitchen window and they thank me before they eat. Just like saying grace. Or maybe they're giving me the musical middle finger — "thanks, sucker!”
So today is the day I can say "Go Pies!" and actually mean it.